The Fall Gardening Series is nearing completion, having culminated in the much anticipated and heralded scarecrow contest. Participants first learned about the history of scarecrows used in agriculture and viewed the video, “Where do scarecrows come from?” on YouTube. They learned that the process began with children running through fields with noisemakers to scare birds away from crops. It later turned into human-like dolls, which we call scarecrows, and then evolved into machinery doing the job.

According to contest judge Meredith Buono-Dagrossa, the competition was so intense that two winners and two runners-up had to be selected rather than just the one in each category. The scarecrows were judged on their creativity, complexity, and their potential to scare birds. There was a total of 10 entries.

“A ton of work went into all pieces, which included creative names, lights, and sounds to scare away unwanted critters,” she said.

The group also discussed crops that are grown in the fall season. They learned about three trends of gardening this year: Using Amazon cardboard boxes, Gardening Influencers, and Urban Gardens. They played a fun game of “Name That Plant” in which each participant had to have a fruit, vegetable, or flower for the group to guess its identity. They also had two guest speakers: First, Neva Fairchild from BVA corporate sponsor WayAround, who spoke about using WayAround clips to label gardening items. Second, Gardening influencer Raushanah Echols, the JERSEY girl gardener, who taught attendees just this past week the art of sowing seeds during the winter.