Find out how your neighbor's garden grows at the Lake County Fair

You can find out about what's growing in some of your neighbors' gardens at the Lake County Fair.

Mammoth summer zucchini, kale, chard, Egyptian beets and more are on display from the fair's vegetable competition through Sunday at the Grayslake fairgrounds. Entrants competed for modest cash prizes and ribbons.

Thomas Shaffer of Buffalo Grove has been monitoring the fair's vegetable displays for 21 years. He said the produce looks good this week because there have been more favorable growing conditions.

"Last year was bad," said Shaffer, 76, who used to compete in the creative vegetable display category. "Remember how cold it was?"

Steady crowds Thursday passed by the veggies on long tables in the fairgrounds' exposition building.

Patrons got to see Deb Woodward's 10 green-pod snap beans, which were the grand champion and best of show for agricultural products. There also were Ray Goodbody's 10 chard leaves that snagged a blue ribbon.

Shaffer, an agriculture products supervisor, said the veggie competitors seem different these days. He said he particular misses a quirky guy known as Dan the Potato Man, who was known for entering about 30 varieties of spuds.

Dan the Potato Man died last year, Shaffer said.

"A lot of characters are gone," he said.

Veggies were judged in private Monday. All exhibits must be grown by the competitors and should be free of insect and disease damage.

Buffalo Grove resident Barbara DeMoss, 75, who kept an eye on the agricultural products Thursday, took note of the number of children who visited the area.

"I'm surprised by the number of children that want to see what things are," she said.