Start With Varities

When you’re starting a vegetable garden, there are a few key decisions to make. You’ll need to decide which vegetables you want to grow, their hardiness zones and how you want to grow them.

Some vegetables can be started indoors from seed, while others need to be transplanted. Depending on your climate and weather, some crops can be sown as early as March or April.

The annual spring plant show of the Hancock County Master Gardeners and Hancock County Herb Society is this Friday and Saturday. The event has been an annual tradition for roughly 20 years. Submitted photo”>

GREENFIELD – Hancock County’s gardening experts will be selling vegetables, herbs, flowers and more this weekend in their annual spring sale to raise money for the community.

The plant sale of the Hancock County Master Gardeners and Herb Society will be this Friday and Saturday at the Hancock County 4-H Fairgrounds.

The event will feature expert advice and selections of a large array of plant choices: the herb society offers a variety of culinary, medical, decorative and craft-use herbs along with tomatoes, peppers and perennials. Master gardeners offer an extensive variety of perennials, vegetable plants, geraniums, begonias and house plants.

Teresa Bowlby said the master gardeners have been hosting the plant sale roughly 20 years and it is one of the group’s main fundraisers to offer up scholarships and educational programs to the community.

“There’s a variety of annuals, quite a few of them we get from the Greenfield FFA so we’re supporting them,” Bowlby said. “A variety of perennials, most of which are donated by master gardeners or master gardeners’ friends. We have Mother’s Day baskets; last year was the first year we had those and they simply walked out the door.”

People with questions on gardening can ask many of the members on hand; there’s even a shed sale with gently-used tools and pots that people can purchase for a reasonable price to get started gardening this spring.

At 10 a.m. Saturday will be a demonstration on salsa gardening, and recipes for fresh salsa. They even offer house plants, Bowlby added, because of the popularity of succulents in recent years.

Carolyn Swinford said the sale is an opportunity to reconnect friends and neighbors in the community, as well as learn about how to grow gardens.

“If you can name the herb, there’s a really good chance we have it,” said Swinford of the Hancock County Herb Society.

Children are welcome to plant a tomato to take home for free – “we want as many future gardeners as we can get,” she said. With dozens of plants available, Swinford said there’s always someone from the herb society on site to answer questions on how to grow and maintain herbs, as well as offer ideas on how to use them in cooking.

Proceeds benefit the society’s effort to maintain the herb and fairy gardens at the James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home.

“I get to see people that I don’t always get to see normally, and every year people come back; there’s a lot of the same people,” Swinford said. “We just hope people come out and support the effort.”

Source: greenfieldreporter.com