Garden club to select sunflower contest winners next week
To celebrate Earth Day in April, the Port St. Joe Garden Club initiated a sunflower growing contest. Skyscraper sunflower seeds were distributed free of charge to interested library card holders at the Corinne Costin Gibson Memorial Public Library.
Members of the garden club’s Seed Library Committee will commence measuring the sunflower blooms on Monday, July 10, at 2 p.m. EDT at the library.
Only skyscraper sunflower blooms grown from the seeds distributed at the library will be eligible for judging. Cut flower entries should be on stems less than 12 inches long and exhibited in a clear vase or bottle.
Entrants may submit their blooms along with their completed entry forms at the library anytime during operating hours on July 8 until noon on July 10. Only one entry will be accepted per person.
Photos of the winners will be taken for publicity in The Star. The gardener who grows the largest sunflower bloom will receive the first place prize of $50. The second place winner will be awarded $25, and the third place winner will be presented with $15.
Managing a seed library is a collaborative endeavor that involves many community groups. Foremost, librarians assist the public with seed distribution.
Gulf County Master Gardeners suggested which varieties of vegetables and flowers are best suited for Gulf Coast climes and soils. They also compiled the literature detailing the growing requirements for each type of seed.
The Friends of the Library generously supply the special paper envelopes in which the seeds are optimally stored. Members of the garden club’s Seed Library Committee oversee the entire project and buy, inventory, and stock the seed packets.
For information about the Port St. Joe Garden Club, please follow it on Facebook.
The lovely home of the garden club is listed on the United States Department of the Interior’s Registry of Historic Places. It may be reserved for special occasions and can accommodate up to 70 people. For more details, please contact rental coordinator Lanann Tuttle at 404-932-0604 or email psjgardenclub@gmail.com.
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.