One Islander has dominated a show category at the Puyallup Fair for so many years that other people often don’t bother to compete against him.

Al Watts, a retired dentist and proprietor of Appleyard Farm in Dockton, has coaxed tall stalks of corn to a towering 23 feet, earning them first prize year after year and a Puyallup Fair record. He’ll take his stalks to the fair again this month, where he hopes to secure another consecutive win for the tallest stalk of corn.

Watts’ pumpkins, too, have tipped the scales at a winning 800 pounds, though his squash this year are only “so-so,” he said, weighing in at a mere 300.

Watts’ farm, a spread of several plots next to a 19th-century white farmhouse tucked away in central Dockton, is thick with everything from rhododendrons and Japanese maples to uncommon fruits such as honeyberry, pawpaws and ground cherries. The gardens, lush and green, are a testament to Watts’ hard work as well as the bounty of the local temperate climate.

Small red, orange and green cherry tomatoes climb metal poles in the shade of corn stalks, and steps away grow tiny, hairless kiwis that are eaten whole. Past the noisy chicken coop grow 32 varieties of grapes and patchwork pear trees Watts propagated and grafted so that a different type of pear grows on each limb. U-pick corn fields and pumpkin patches border the small side street where Appleyard sits.

“I love plants, there’s no doubt about it — even the ones I can’t eat,” said Watts, 85. “But it’s better when I can.”

More than 100 odd and rare prize-winning chickens call Appleyard Farm home, and it’s the chickens that are the secret to plentiful produce, Watts said. The poultry produce pounds of potent fertilizer, or manure, every day, which he slathers on the soil of his prized plants.

Watts, an affable, silver-haired man whose familiarity with vegetation is clear, has entered agricultural shows and fairs since he was a youngster, and he has more than 100 plaques and ribbons to show for his efforts.

“This is a hobby that just got out of hand,” Watts said with a smile. “I’ve been doing it all my life.”’

Next week, he’ll cut down two towering corn stalks, bundle them up as best he can, load them atop his pickup truck and drive them to the Puyallup Fair, where they’ll face off against other long stalks.

“It takes a lot of work to get them there,” he said. “It’s a project.”

When a stalk is that tall — in the teens or more — the ears can grow a foot and a half long, and they are at least eight feet up, too high up to be harvested by hand, he said.

The competition in the tallest corn stalk category has dwindled in recent years, Watts said. He’s been showing produce and poultry at Puyallup Fair for more than 40 years.

“They kind of figure I’m going to have the tallest, and they don’t compete,” he said. “But maybe this year somebody will grow a bigger one. That’d be fine. Then I’d have to get to work more.”

Watts, who was a dentist in West Seattle for 39 years, began spending summers in Dockton in 1963, and eventually he and his wife Muriel moved to the Island full-time.

“I always looked forward to the weekends,” Watts said. “Vashon’s a very important part of my life.”

Watts has been active in community service in West Seattle and Vashon for decades and still serves on two committees for the American Poultry Association.

He’ll attend a poultry show in Illinois later this month, and he’d take a few chickens to show, if it weren’t so difficult to check them on the airplane.

“They just don’t want to deal with them,” Watts said of the airlines. “You can mail them, but that’s about the only way other than driving.”

When Watts does show chickens, he prepares them a week in advance with a bath and fan dry in a warm room, to bring out the full beauty and gloss of their plumage, he said.

“I started showing chickens when I was 6 years old,” he said. “The first one, I got a red ribbon on, and I’ve been showing ever since.”

Raising chickens and cultivating plants gives him joy, he added.

“When I get up in the morning, I think of all the things I get to do at the farm today,” he said.

Appleyard Farm is open as a licensed nursery, and visitors are welcome to drop by. But Watts warns that shoppers may have more of an interactive experience at Appleyard than they would somewhere else.

“They might have to help me dig it up and help me carry it to the car, but they get their plants at a reasonable price,” Watts said. “But they have to listen to me talk.”

Watts’ wife Muriel said she’s glad her husband has found a home in their Dockton garden.

“It’s great, because it gives my husband a sense of pleasure and accomplishment,” she said. “And everybody benefits. It’s a wonderful hobby. … I don’t buy too many groceries.”