Contests » Grow it Forward Heirloom Seed Contest

Grow it Forward for the benefit of future generations

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Contest 101
Official Rules
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Top 25 Heirloom Gardens - New theme: Plant!

Here are the top 25 heirloom gardens from across the US and Canada helping to preserve the legacy and diversity of these time-honored plants.

Click the play button for Tom's congrats to the "Seed" winners

Now that the "Seed" themed portion of the contest has ended (winners page coming soon), a brand new contest tally has begun for the "Plant" theme. Good luck one and all for this next phase of the contest! Questions or suggestions? contest@yourgardenshow.com

toppenish family organic garden Toppenish, WA

By JMTKMS

We started this garden in 2010 and could not believe the harvest!!! We expanded in 2011 and now we are exhausted because the harvest was so much more. We are completely organi...

0936

East Texas Linden, TX

By RoriTx

We grow,can or freeze 90% of all the vegetables we eat. I've decided to start saving our own seeds so this year we will plant as many heirloom varieties as we can.Breaking News:...

0893

Bohemian Garden Monroe, MI

By Liz

My vegetable garden is getting a makeover this year! Not only will I be growing more heirlooms, but the area where they will be growing will have a Bohemian flair.....colorful,...

0861

Ramos' Disorganized Garden Floresville, TX

By Clenram

The success of our gardening has been great, with some disappointments due to the learning curve. We are learning what we can do when we have 4 months of temperatures over 100 a...

0682

The Heirloom Garden of Eatin' Tacoma, WA

By Queen_of_Green

I redesigned my vegetable garden last year at Franklin Park Community Garden with the Vegetable Garden Planner on Mother Earth News. I am implementing the full plan this season ...

0518

Sweet Heirlooms Hastings, MN

By SweetDomesticity

A Grow It Forward heirloom garden

0432

My Escape Upper Sandusky, OH

By PYehl

My 30'x70' piece of paradise. Nothing makes me happier than to work in my garden and get lots of dirt under my fingernails. I spend almost every day in the cold Ohio winters d...

0367

The Peaceful Prayer Garden Goodview, VA

By linzelu100

I'm going BIG this year! I decided to give up a career as a helicopter pilot to be a stay at home mommy. I want to feed my family the best food possible so I am finally growing ...

0293

Stone Cottage Farm Garden 2012 Mayville, MI

By StoneCottageFarm

Hi! I'm the Stone Cottage Farm Garden 2012! I was brand new two years ago when Farmer Dave and Farmer Christina broke new ground in what used to be the back farm yard. I'm hopin...

0248

Theobald Family Garden Logan, UT

By Jentheo

Growing up I always provided a little garden space from my mom for me to grow things. As years have gone by and now I'm married, we have survived many times living off our garde...

0158

Gardening behind the Garage Pearland, TX

By julia42

We have an average sized suburban lot which is mostly dedicated to the antics of our three busy boys. The 15' x 25' area behind the garage was pretty worthless lawn, though, so...

0144

Dr. Greenthumb's Rockwall, TX

By joeythejoe

II remember gardening as a child with my grandparents. As I go older I wanted to have a small garden of my own to grow different vegetables and enjoy the outdoors. I have 100Sq/...

0140

sss top spot White Swan, WA

By loveylola

We live in the Heart of the Yakam Indian Reservation in White Swan WA. on our family farm. I work at our local school as a Educational Assist and part time sub Teacher for ch...

0133

Tallulah's Veggie Patch Louisville, KY

By tallulahshines

A community garden veggie patch, at the hands of an inexperienced city dweller!

0108

slip sliding away Arroyo Grande, CA

By Nellilein

My garden is on a SW facing slope and quite a challenge. Sometimes I feel being part billy goat would help getting up and down the garden. We have stairs and a path planned, b...

0107

Oscar & Mabel's playground Fort Payne, AL

By vanna516

I love trying new varieties & since I'm relatively "new" to gardening that is easy. It is also easy to learn from your mistakes. I named the garden after 2 of my kitties (...

0093

Millie's Heirloom 2012 Junction City, KS

By milliesgarden

I started my first real garden in 2009 :) That first year I grew seeds and plants purchased from the store (GMO). Boring veggies, bland flavors, and minimal produce. When I fo...

0080

Spy Garden Glencoe, MO

By amaranth3

My son named the garden because we are going to plant all the tall stuff on the outside edges so he will be able to "spy" out of it and people won't be able to see in. I'm also ...

0066

The Yarden Lakewood, OH

By tfacey

About 6 years ago, we started on a journey to sustainability within the confines of our own urban 1/4 acre. Hence the dawning of The Yarden where we practice urban yardening. Ea...

0054

Old Charm Forreston, TX

By Sophora

An organic garden that provides interest for all seasons and entices every sense.

0053

Suburbia Haven San Antonio, TX

By CreativeGreenThumb

We bought a house six years ago in the suburbs of San Antonio Texas. We don't have alot of space so I had my husband build me a garden box right outside of the back door. Sinc...

0052

Willowwacks Faerie Garden Rogue River, OR

By puckamok

When I moved here there was a small organic garden in place but the majority of the soil on my land had been washed away years ago by gold miners and then extensive logging depl...

0045

The Dirt Mama's Garden Woodstock, GA

By TheDirtMama

I inherited my love of gardening from my father, who plopped me down in the dirt next to him as soon as I was old enough to sit up. This particular Dirt Mama's Garden has been ...

0034

Cypress Lake Ranch Bonham, TX

By sreece

This is my 4th year of gardening commercially. I use natural pest controls and organic fertilizer in my raised beds. This year I am trying out the Mittleider method of gardening...

0032

Blue Barn Acres Merced, CA

By KellyB

We're trying to grow as much of our own food as we can. It's year 1 on this property. After an almost rainless winter, our small continuous harvest feels gratifying. But it's on...

0029

See all Grow it Forward Heirloom Gardens »

Contest 101 - About the Contest

Here's a quick overview to get you started. For more details, just click the "Official Rules" tab above.

Eligibility

To participate in the contest, you must: 1) live and garden in the U.S. or Canada, and 2) be a registered Member of YourGardenShow.com

In order to join us and Grow it Forward you need to make sure you have done the following:

Great, now you are ready to Grow it Forward! There are two phases to the contest: the first spans the growing season of your heirloom plants and the second involves encouraging your friends, family and fellow gardeners to vote on your hard work.

PHASE ONE: Commenting

Phase One spans seed to harvest, with prizes and lottery tickets awarded for the most commented Glogs (garden logs) at the end of each of the four themes (Seed, Plant, Tend, and Harvest).

Phase One: Glog commenting counter

A counter will appear on your heirloom garden and will tally how many comments you receive on your garden’s glog activities.

Heirloom_Queen’s comment on Fruit of the Heirloom’s journal entry would get them one comment closer to prizes and lottery tickets.

Your heirloom garden’s comment counter

Phase One: Lottery Tickets

The top 25 in each planting theme will be awarded lottery tickets, while the top 3 will also be awarded prizes.

The prizes will be provided by YourGardenShow, Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, National Gardening Association, Timber Press, Storey Publishing, and Green Deals, so you know the items will complement a gardener's lifestyle.

Official Rules - Grow It Forward Heirloom Seed Contest

To provide a fair and equal chance of winning to all YourGardenShow.com members, the following are the official rules for the contest. If you have questions about the rules of this contest, please contact us: contest@yourgardenshow.com

YourGardenShow.com Glossary of Terms

Member of YourGardenShow.com: Any person who completes the YourGardenShow.com user registration process and complies with the YourGardenShow.com Terms of Service and Privacy Guarantee.

Glog (garden log): A feature of YourGardenShow.com that allows you to post online comments, observations, photos, videos and more about your real-life garden. Moreover, it's a blog for your garden. Also, through interactive features, gardeners can track garden progress and real-time observations, helping Citizen Science efforts that build accurate baselines on the health of the planet.

Heirloom gardener: A YourGardenShow Member who has created a new heirloom garden/Glog (or tagged a current garden as heirloom) and has planted at least 3 heirloom varieties to share in the Grow it Forward contest.

Heirloom garden: An online garden/Glog created on YourGardenShow.com that is tagged as “heirloom” and has at least 3 “planted” heirloom varieties.

Phase One: The first part of the contest is broken down into four themes (Seed, Plant, Tend, and Harvest). Phase One begins on March 1, 2012 and ends on July 31, 2012 at noon U.S. Pacific Time. Contest winners during this portion of Grow it Forward are determined by comments received.

Phase Two: The second part of the contest is the final stretch of Grow it Forward. Phase Two begins on August 1, 2012 and ends on August 31, 2012 at noon U.S. Pacific Time. Contest winners during this portion of Grow it Forward are determined by votes received.

Top 25 Heirloom gardens leader board page: This is a feature of YourGardenShow.com that shows the top 25 heirloom gardens with the most Comments or Votes.

Participation

The primary purpose of Grow it Forward is twofold:

1. To jointly collect growth data across North America for all 1,400 of Baker Creek's heirloom varieties and that of other providers to be used by current and future gardeners as a rich resource of information and;

2. To incentivize YourGardenShow.com Members to use their Glog feature to share content, and thereby inspire community interactions in the form of Comments and Votes.

The premise of the contest is simple:

1. The top 3 Heirloom Gardens with the most Glog comments in each of the four initial contest periods (Seeds, Planting, Cultivation, and Harvest) will be prize winners in Phase One.

2. The Heirloom Garden with the most earned lottery tickets (through Phase One comment activity and Phase Two popular vote) will have a higher statistical chance to be the “Grand Prize" winner.

Note: Each of the four Phase One comment totals is valid for only one time period (either Seed, Plant, Tend, or Harvest) - at the start of each successive themed contest phase, the comment count will return to "zero" for all eligible heirloom gardens.

Prizes

Multiple prizes provided by YourGardenShow.com, Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, National Gardening Association, Timber Press, Storey Publishing, Green Deals and others will be awarded during Phase One (March 1st to April 15th, April 16th to May 31st, June, July); a Grand Prize winner will be determined through a live lottery drawing on the September 1, 2012 Ask Ian episode.

During each award period the top 25 gardeners will be issued lottery tickets for the Grand Prize drawing. The heirloom gardener lottery winner selected at random on September 1, 2012 will be the Grand Prize winner of two roundtrip flights from a destination in the U.S. or Canada to San Francisco to attend the 2nd Annual National Heirloom Expo (Santa Rosa, CA); local hotel accommodations (one hotel room) from the night of September 10th to the morning of September 14th will be included along with a rental car stipend for that same time period.

Eligibility

To participate in the contest, you must:

1. live and garden in the U.S. or Canada 2. be a registered Member of YourGardenShow.com 3. have created an heirloom Glog 4. have planted at least three varieties of heirloom seeds for sharing on your Glog. 5. agree with the YourGardenShow.com website Terms of Service and Privacy Guarantee.

Members must create and maintain an heirloom Glog in order to be eligible to participate. Each heirloom Glog's comment and vote totals will be automatically tracked and displayed in real-time on the heirloom Glog under the Garden Slideshow Carousel. The top 25 gardens with the most comments/votes will be displayed and updated in real-time on the Grow it Forward Top Glog page.

At the sole discretion of YourGardenShow.com management, any member who attempts to manipulate the contest in any way to give themselves an unfair advantage will be disqualified and their garden removed.

YourGardenShow reserves the right to disqualify any participant.

Your Garden Show, Inc., Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co., Petaluma Seed Bank, and Comstock, Ferre & Co. employees are not eligible to enter the contest.

There is no purchase necessary to participate.

Timeline

The Contest begins on Thursday, March 1, 2012 and ends on Wednesday, August 31, 2012 at noon (US Pacific time).

Commenting on Contest Gardens (for Phase One - March to July 2012): Signed-in YourGardenShow members can comment on an unlimited number of gardens each day, the more commenting activity a gardener generates the higher chance or reciprocity.

Voting on Contest Gardens (for Phase Two - August 2012): Signed-in YourGardenShow members can vote on an unlimited number of gardens each day, but they can only place one vote each per garden per day;

The clock then resets every 24 hours at midnight US Pacific time, whereupon members may vote again for gardens they have already voted for;

For contest entrants, the more they encourage others to make return visits to vote every 24 hours, the more opportunity they will have to increase their vote count on their gardens.

Awarding of Prizes

YourGardenShow.com heirloom Glog Comments (Phase One) and Votes (Phase Two) will be totaled instantaneously by a tracking feature and displayed on each heirloom Glog of those gardens officially entered in the Contest.

Phase One winners will be announced the day after the end of each theme period (April 16th, June 1st, July 1st, August 1st), or on or before September 1st, 2012.

Grand Prize winner will be determined by a live lottery drawing on Ask Ian, YourGardenShow.com’s LIVE question and answer online program, on Saturday, September 1st, 2012 at 9am (US Pacific time).

Each contest winner will be contacted via the Email address used for that winner’s YourGardenShow.com member account.

To ensure that you can be contacted in the case of winning, be sure your Email address in your Account settings is up-to-date.

Contest winners will be asked to provide a valid physical mailing address to which YourGardenshow.com, Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co, or one of the contest sponsors can directly mail their prize.

Receiving your prize via mail may take up to 30 days from the date of the announcement of the winners.

If a contest winner decides to forfeit his/her prize or does not respond to the winner email by September 31, 2012, then that prize will be awarded to the next eligible heirloom gardener.

The winner, by acceptance of any prize, acknowledges compliance with the Grow It Forward Heirloom Seed Contest Official Rules and agrees to release Your Garden Show, Inc. from and against any claim or cause of action arising out of participation in the Grow It Forward Heirloom Seed Contest or the receipt, redemption, or use of any prize, including any injuries or damages of any kind sustained in connection with the use, acceptance, possession, or awarding of any prize.

Limitation of Liability

If, for any reason, the Grow It Forward Heirloom Seed Contest is not capable of running as planned, Your Garden Show, Inc. reserves the right at its sole discretion to disqualify any entry or entrant and/or to cancel, modify, or suspend the Grow It Forward Heirloom Seed Contest.

Prizes

This year, gardeners from across the US and Canada are coming together to grow over 1,400 heirloom plant varieties and participate in a growing movement to preserve the legacy and diversity of these time-honored plants. Share your heirloom adventures on YourGardenShow.com and qualify for a chance to win some great prizes.

If your Grow it Forward heirloom garden is one of the top 3 most commented on Glogs during the Seed, Plant, Tend, or Harvest time periods, you'll be eligible for a prize that may include gardening tools, Baker Creek swag, gardening books, or other "green" gifts.

Our grand prize winner will receive accommodations and air travel to attend The National Heirloom Expo this September in California.

See contest prizes below for the "Plant" contest time period, thanks to our Grow it Forward sponsors: Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, National Gardening Association, Timber Press, Storey Publishing, Green Deals, and YourGardenShow.com. Lots of handy items to complement a gardener's lifestyle!