This Friday and Saturday, May 7 and 8, the Rodale Institute will be having its first-ever spring planting festival, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. It's the perfect time of year to stock up on everything you need to get your garden growing, figure out how to get a perfect organic lawn, or pick up some organic compost.
I will be there all day Saturday, since Maria's Farm Country Kitchen is sponsoring the organic Applegate Farms hotdog stand (dogs on the grill, of course!). Applegate Farms makes the best organic hotdogs ever, and at last year's apple-picking festival, they were a huge hit.
I'll also be speaking about my book, Organic Manifesto, at 1:00, and signing copies afterwards.
But that's not all! At 11:00 on Saturday morning, there is a Q and A with Ethne Clarke and Doug Hall, editor-in-chief and senior editor, respectively, of Organic Gardening magazine. And at 3:00 Saturday, our very own Nickel Pincher from Rodale.com, Jean Nick, will hold a session on raising chickens in your backyard. She has a chicken farm called Happy Farms, and her chickens are delicious. (But just because you want chickens in your backyard doesn't mean you have to eat them.)
There is also a container gardening workshop with April Johnson, who is really amazing, and has lots of tattoos.
And one more thing, there is a bargain barn filled with lots of stuff left over from spring cleaning.
It will be really fun, and it be held rain or shine (by now I'm used to weather of all sorts) because gardening happens no matter what the weather. And as one of my favorite new country songs by Luke Bryan goes, "Rain makes corn, corn makes whiskey, whiskey makes my baby feel a little bit frisky! Rain is a good thing." I don't grow corn or drink whiskey or have a baby who drinks it, but it's a catchy song!
Come on down to the farm! For more info, go to Rodaleinstitute.org/organic_spring_planting_festival.
For more from Maria Rodale, go to www.mariasfarmcountrykitchen.com.