2019 East Austin Garden Fair Scheduled

EAST AUSTIN, TEXAS — Attention plant lovers: The 2019 East Austin Garden Fair is right around the corner. Free plants, advice from experts, kid-friendly activities and more are in store for those attending.

The theme of this upcoming event is "Learn. Teach. Grow." It's scheduled to take place at Parque Zaragoza Recreation Center, 2608 Gonzales St., on April 13 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event is free to attend, and materials and advice also will be gratis for attendees. Some highlights:

• Ask the experts and get garden ideas.
• Kid-friendly activities.
• Free admission.
• Free plants.
• Free garden books, magazines, seed catalogs and plastic garden buckets.
• Free soil screening for food gardeners (bring a two-cup soil sample in a quart zip-lock bag for assessment). Easy instructions for soil sampling can be found at: http://austintexas.gov/soilkitchen

This botanical event is being staged by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, Travis County Master Gardeners and Austin Parks & Recreation. It's the 13th annual East Austin Garden Fair. "This fun, hands-on fair involves community members in creative, low-cost ways to grow vegetables, herbs and fruit to improve the family diet as well as information about Earth-Kind landscaping," organizers described on the event website.

To that end, Travis County Master Gardeners will offer university-based information to fair-goers on a diverse variety of horticulture topics, while community partner organizations will provide information on closely related services, programs and projects. Daphne Richards, AgriLife Extension for horticulture-Travis County, will be available to answer questions about gardening and horticulture and talk about the Master Gardener volunteer program as part of the “Meet the Horticulture Agent” feature at the fair.

There will be free soil screening for gardeners will be offered through Austin Resource Recovery. To have soil tested for metals, pH and nutrients, attendees need to bring a 2-cup soil sample in a quart-size zip-lock bag. Instructions for soil sampling can be found at http://austintexas.gov/soilkitchen. Free vegetable, herb or ornamental plants will be given to attendees while supplies last.

For more information, call (512) 854-9600