Spring Garden Fair Coming Up

The 36th Annual Spring Garden Fair, hosted by the Jackson County Master Gardeners, will take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, May 2 and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 3 at the Expo in Central Point. Admission is $3, free for children 15 and under.

The arena will be brimming with diverse edible and ornamental plants acclimated to thrive in Southern Oregon. There will be more than 150 vendors, exhibitors, and booths manned by garden-related experts. Fairgoers can also attend brief demonstration classes, free of charge, on a variety of gardening topics.  Here’s a link to their site where you’ll find a vendor directory and the class schedule www.jacksoncountymga.org.

I’m a little ashamed to say that for years we’ve heard about this event but had never attended.  I  think you’ll forgive me as I have a good excuse!  We are so busy March – June that those months tend to go by in a blur. Last year we were encouraged (maybe a better word is ‘pushed’) by 3 different people to not only attend but to have a booth.  It sounded pretty crazy and we  really had no idea why we even committed to it except that everybody kept talking about how fun it was. They were right, we had a blast!

Not knowing what to expect we packed our booth with a little bit of everything we grow and had to make multiple trips out to our truck to restock. This year we opted for a bigger booth and hopefully fewer trips out to the truck!

Here’s a few tips we observed from veteran attendees:

1.  Whatever you do, wear comfy shoes.  There’s lots of walking and the Expo is bigger than it looks!

2.  Bring a cart or wagon to haul your plants in or if you don’t want to fuss with your own, there are 4-H booths on each end of the arena where they will happily rent you a wagon and even plant sit your purchases while you go back for more.

3.  Expect to find all the plants on your list and oodles more that you just can’t live without!

Hope to see you all there!