Rake, Hoe and Spade Garden Club
By: usermattw
Tags: gardening, photography, San Mateo, vintage photography
Sorting through one of my boxes of old photos, I found myself skipping over a bunch of 3.5 x 4.5-inch snapshots that seemed less interesting, until I realized they might be related. So I started to focus on them. They are all undated and unidentified, but they seem to tell a bit of a story. (Click on any of the pictures below to enlarge them in a new tab.)
First are these two photos of people working on assembling something. (There happen to be duplicates of these first two pictures, three copies each.) From just these photos, the project was a mystery to me.
But then there are these photos of a garden. It has its own space among other spaces, and is roped off, leading me to suspect that this is some sort of show or contest.
Then I took a closer look at the first of these garden photos. In the right part of the garden, there’s a sign with a ribbon on it. After a lot of enlarging and guessing and patient googling, I believe this is the work of the Rake, Hoe and Spade Garden Club of San Mateo, CA. I don’t know if this display is in San Mateo, or if they’ve traveled somewhere else to compete. But it seems to have been worth their while, since the ribbon makes it appear they’ve won some sort of prize!
Finally, here are a couple of nicely dressed ladies posing with what I’m guessing is their handiwork.
It was a nice reminder to me that, sometimes, even the less obviously marvelous photos can yield rewards.
Pics of Then 
These are fun, but it’s too bad they aren’t in color!
Yes, I’m sure the garden looks a lot better in color. And then we could also see what color ribbon they won.