Made my Flight reservations (Southwest Airlines), rented my Car (Hertz), purchased my Citruholics Dinner tickets, and Petals From The Past lunches, all done on line this evening. Will make my hotel reservations at the Best Western first thing in the morning. Now my wife and I are all set for Citrus Expo 2013 - Millet

Order placed. I believe I was #9. Will be reserving room at Best Western where we have a group rate of $76.50 I believe.

I will be doing three tours Friday before the dinner.

*First stop* Hayes Jackson at 9:00am at his place located at 1300 Old Gadsden Hwy., Anniston, Ala. 36206

Second stop around noon at Mr. John Neighbors Citrus and Fruit Farm located near Alexander City, Ala.

Third stop after lunch at the Research Center in Thorsby, Ala.

* I noticed that the website has changed the first tour to Longleaf Botanical Gardens. Is this Hayes Jackson place or has the itinerary been changed?

Looking forward to meeting everyone!

Not sure where I should post this but I'll start here and see where it goes. Lazz if you feel it would be better somewhere else please move it or start a new post wherever.

I just want to say that this was great event. I only wish we had another day of meet and greet. I only spoke with maybe 20% of the attendees and I know there were others there I wanted to meet. Met people who were not associated with the forum but were obviously interested in Citrus. Several from the Southern Fruit Fellowship and one couple that only lives thirty miles from me that are interested in planting about ten acres in Satsumas.

Putting some faces to user names was very nice. I am making plans to attend the next one in Tifton Georgia, near Hershells place, next year.

Once this post find a home or someone else posts a productive post I will post pictures.

I had a great time too. Millet won the prize for coming the longest distance. I enjoyed all the speakers. Dr. Powell was great as always. Stan got beat for best in show by a grapefruit. Dang ! I have no idea how you compare a grapefruit and a satsuma. I hope everybody had a good time. I don't have anything to compare to this year's expo.

On a funny note. I got home late Friday from John Neighbor's in the rain. My wife said will you take me out to supper, I'm leaving town tomorrow ( this I knew ! ) I never thought about my paid supper reservation at the expo until about 8:30 that night. Embarrassing. My wife and I had a good meal but my small mind jumped a cycle. I realize I am leaving myself wide open here ........

By the way, John Neighbors said he was talking to everybody on his tour stop on Friday , it started to rain and when he turned around everybody had disappeared. He is so funny. Great sense of humor. He and Dr. Powell play against each other real well.

At the expo we also heard that John Neighbors has possibly the oldest compost pile in the USA and the best one year old blueberries for sale !

Tom

For those of us who couldn't make, let us hear about the oldest compost pile in America. Was it sited on top of a native American midden? Did he use starter from Thomas Jefferson's personal compost heap? What's the story?

Well, lets see some photos...

One of the tours on Friday was to the farm of Mr. John Neighbors. Before Mr. Neighbors obtained his land, it was owned by a logging company, and was used as a wood milling site. If I remember the numbers correctly John Neighbor's compost pile (considered the oldest compost pile in America) was made around 1910 as a 22 acre pile of sawdust. Today he is currently using it in his nursery business. The sawdust is at this time jet black. Sorry I'm unable to supply any pictures of this year's Expo, as I never bother with cameras. -- Millet

Best of show was won by Ned for his Golden Grapefruit entry, it was a beautiful looking fruit. . Stan was this years second place award winner (Stan was best of show at the 2012 Expo last year) - Millet

It sounds like one of the larger compost piles in America, as well. Such old sawmill sites are common in this area, as well, and commonly mined for soil by blueberry farms and nurseries. Or were common, it should be said, since many such sites have been exploited already.

I have uploaded to Photobucket and I'll post the Citrus fruit entrys thia evening.

OK here is the fruit judging pictures.

Judging room



Grapefruit


Pink Grapefruit



Golden This was best of show by Ned


Flame


Sweet Orange


Washington Navel


Cara Cara


Sweet Betty


Mandarians


Owari


Ponkon



Xie Shan


Complex Hybrids


Ichangensis


Ichangensis and others


Trifoliate (Poncirus)


Dragon Lime and Morton Citrange


Sour Orange


Sour Oranges


Others


Australian Finger Lime


Lemon


Lemons


Kumquats


Procimequats


Quats


Lemonquats


Meiwa


Other Quats


Orangequat


Eustis Limequat

Charles I think it was the Golden grapefruit that won. The picture showing the Golden grapefruit and the Red grapefruit side by side are both Ned's fruit, and the Golden was Ned's best of show. - Millet