Planting Fest

[Ma's_Garden]

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds will soon be having their annual Spring Planting Festival. It will be on Sunday and Monday, April 25 and 26, 2005. This year will be my third year to attend. It is always enjoyable and very informative.

Herb and Karen Culver are some of my favorites of the many people who I've met there. They are very nice people who happen to be one of the plant vendors and have also been speakers.

The speakers are always very interesting. I like to keep a tablet and pen handy to take notes. This year I'm especially wanting to hear what Amy Goldman has to say, since I will be selling melon and squash plants among other things.

Are any of you going? What are your favorite things about the festival?

[Ma's_Garden]

The planting fest was a huge success in the opinion of everyone with whom I've spoken about it. Even though there was a hard frost the night before and a very cold wind on Sunday, an estimated 3500 people attended on Sunday, which is about double what the attendance was on the first day last year. It is my own personal estimate that the attendance on Monday was probably higher than on Monday of last year, even though there was some rain on that day this year.

As a plant vendor, I more than doubled my sales this year compared with previous years. The woman in the booth beside me sold out of some of her products on the first day, made more that night, and nearly sold out again on the next day.

The best part of all, however, is the chance to socialize with so many other people who are interested in the same types of things. Some new acquaintances that I made this year were from Alaska, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

If you haven't had a chance to attend one of Baker Creek's April planting fests or August garden shows, I highly recommend it. It is something to really look forward to. Many people probably even schedule their yearly vacation time to coincide with it so that they can attend.

[GreenZone]

Yup, it was a HOOT!

[walleye]

Sorry I missed it, but I see from an earlier post that a fellow Wisconsinite was able to attend. Maybe that is where the frost came from . . .

[lovetogarden]

I missed this years festival, but have attended one about two years ago. I remember attending a talk by a man who is an heirloom tomato collecter. Wish I could remember his name. He had a lot to share.

[the_pumpkin_queen]

My boyfriend and I (and his Dachshund) attended this year and even though the drive was 4+ hrs we loved it! Everyone was so nice, which we were kind of wondering about, since we definately do not fit in with the "gardener" sterotype (so we have been told)! I got so many seeds from the store and over 20 new varieties of pepper plants (most of which did not make it :( ) but it was so great. We definately plan on attending the one in August. I hope to see the same vendor that sold me the pepper plants there so I can get some more. :D
Did anyone take pictures? My digicam was battery-less :(

[copperhead]

My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the festival. My church keeps Baker Creek in our prayers as their's is a Godly, strategic mission. Hats off to the Baker Creek team!

[wildseed2u]

Hi, I had planned to attend as I only live a few miles away, but as luck would have it my back gave out on me, and I spend several days trying to get over it. My grand Kids really wanted to go also. I can't wait till the show in August. I hope there will be some one who will speak a little about the Lost Crops of the Andes a subject that I am quite fond of as I feel that they are a important source of plants that may have some promiss here in the Ozarks. There are hundreds of underutilized plants that are very good to eat. Amaranth and Quinoa are just two from the Andean region one other plant is Yacon there are many more. I'm trying to grow a plant called Maca that is from the Highlands of Peru. I also grow three wild hot Pepper species from that region also. I hear that the summer show is even better so I will really try hard to see it.
George W.

[Jodi]

Unfortunately I too missed the spring fest. I had business that called me to GA that very weekend; couldn't change it at all. However, I'm wondering, from those that did get to attend, what was the top one or two items that they learned while attending? And if you had to use one sentence to decribe your experience what would it be?

Thanks for sharing. Hoping to attend the August show!
Jodi

[Ma's_Garden]

Pumpkin Queen, I couldn't help but wonder about your pepper plants that didn't make it. Were they kept watered? How long was it until they were planted? Did you plant them in the evening rather than during the warmest part of the day? Did you pay a high price for them so that you should have been able to have high expectations of them doing well, or were they inexpensive compared with other plants that were for sale at the planting fest so that you knew that you were taking your chances with them? It is disappointing to not get to try new varieties that we are looking forward to, isn't it? Surely there will be many varieties of peppers at the garden show in August, but they will be the actual peppers, not the plants of course!

[bunch]

My wife and I enjoyed the day we spent at the festival .It was chilly but not chilly enough to make us go home . Picked up seed tomatoe plants and blue berry bushes and talked to several intresting people. I liked the additon of the cowboy singer and chuck wagons and as usual we had a sandwich the only veggie burger i have tried that i actually like the taste of. Hope to see you there in August.

[the_pumpkin_queen]

Pumpkin Queen, I couldn't help but wonder about your pepper plants that didn't make it. Were they kept watered? How long was it until they were planted? Did you plant them in the evening rather than during the warmest part of the day? Did you pay a high price for them so that you should have been able to have high expectations of them doing well, or were they inexpensive compared with other plants that were for sale at the planting fest so that you knew that you were taking your chances with them? It is disappointing to not get to try new varieties that we are looking forward to, isn't it? Surely there will be many varieties of peppers at the garden show in August, but they will be the actual peppers, not the plants of course!

Yes, they were cheaper than most I saw there, $1 per plant. They were all very healthy and looked great...otherwise I wouldn't have bought them :p
I planted in the evening and treated them all the same but some still died. Luckily thru another gardening forum I have been able to get a few seeds for the ones I lost but the ones that made it are looking great and already starting to produce some wee little fruit :D
And, yes, it can be so disappointing to find a new variety and not being able to try it!

[Johnny Apple Seed]

I made it to the spring festival and it has been the highlight of the year. The variety of venders was great and the speakers were excellent also.
Ron Khosla of certified naturally grown was a real treat to listen to, learned a lot, what a fun informative speaker he is.
I hope I can fly out next season, the 1.200 mile plus drive from wyoming and then back was a bit much.
Hope I can make it to a summer festivalo sometime.

[farmgirl]

I bought plants in April from 5 different vendor. The frost and cold was not Vendor's fault but about 35% of the plants I bought were so badly frost bitten that they didn't make it. I bought seeds and they did fine. The seeds I got and started that were great were pinapple tomato, Giant Belgium, Green zebra, stupice, banana legs, cherokee purple and hillbilly flame. I bought Belgium, arkansas traveler, and a green emerald that I could see were frost bitten and they didn't make but that was my fault. I should not have bought any of them with frost bite.