The Expo Was a Lot of Work!

As mentioned in my prior post, I had volunteered to help my friends over at Hoss Tools at the AG Expo last week (Tuesday thru Thursday). This Expo is mainly geared towards commercial farmers but my friend talked the shows representatives into letting him open a Sustainable Living Center for home gardeners that were interested in more natural & organic growing methods. Especially since at least a third of the attendees are home gardeners as well.

The location of the show is on an old airfield (over 600 acres). Last year was the first year & it rained almost the entire time & was basically a muddy mess. But, there was a lot of interest so the Center was deemed to stay. They added an open air metal building to hold the vendors & displays of pumpkins which was the theme this year. And, they have a garden shed where attendees can select which implements they want to try. There are single wheel hoes, double ones as well, plus a double seeder & a sweeper attachment (to cut weeds off while pushing through the rows), raised bed kits & a variety of rakes & hoes. The garden was fenced off & divided into 9 or 10 sections. Each holding various flowers & vegetables (4 or 5 kinds of pumpkins, 7 or 8 of squash, pinkeye peas, 2 kinds of okra, various lettuces, pak choy, broccoli, zinnias & cockscomb & sunflowers just to name a few).

They had to bring in over 18 cubic yards of compost because the dirt there was in bad condition. Farmers Organic supplied the compost & Johnny's Seeds supplied the seeds & they both had booths in the building. There was also a speaking tent where various people gave speeches throughout the days, including NY Times best selling author Forrest Pritchard who was promoting his newest book Growing Tomorrow.

We got started each day around 7:00a & ended around 5:00p. The first day started out quite chilly but warmed up to a nice 78 degrees. The next 2 days were quite warm. There were 2 other volunteers from nearby who both have organic gardens, One has a CSA with her brother. We walked around the garden answering peoples questions. Hoss Tools demonstrated their products & let people try them out for themselves. It was quite tiring & as I arose each morning around 5:30a I felt like I had gone back to work!

The interest & enthusiasm showed by attendees was outstanding. Greg from Hoss was interviewed by various newspapers & gave 2 separate live interviews from local newstations. The gardens were beautiful & people were very impressed. We hope to expand next year, maybe have some raw milk & grass fed beef and/or pork products.

There was another vendor (Lauri Jo's) who was exhibiting in one of the larger buildings, doing live cooking demonstrations. She brought in celebrity chefs each day & they came to the garden each morning to pick product to use in some of their demos. Who knows maybe next year we can have a chef or two on site (in the building).

Although this show is always held in the fall, the Media Girl from the show was talking about doing a Spring/Early Summer event just for the Center (read ... no big AG). We'll see.

Here are a few random pictures ...

Raised bed with Salanova Lettuce

L shaped raised bed containing herb

Hexagon raised bed containing, ornamental kale & cabbage

Rainbow Chard, Kale, Romaine, Elegance Asian Lettuce Mix

Zinnias & Cockscomb

Sunflowers

The other 2 volunteers & Greg from Hoss Tools

Double Wheel Hoe

Mennonite Farmer getting ready to buy the Seeder

Trying out the Seeder

Pak Choy, Salinova Lettuce, Broccoli