Highland Farmers Market Plant Sale is Friday May 19

 

It’s almost time for the Highland Farmers Market to begin, but first comes the Plant Sale.  Jen Rattigan has more.  She’s the Program Manager at The Highland Center.

“It’s a preliminary community event that we are having to showcase some early offerings,” says Rattigan.  “Not so much the produce yet, that will start the 26th.   This Friday we’re going to be selling plants between 3:30 and 5:30. Seven or eight vendors will be there, so there will be a lot of stuff to choose from.”

One vendor at the Plant Sale this year will be the Highland Children’s House, which is based at The Highland Center.

“Originally I was trying to come up with a fundraiser for the Highland Children’s House Kids’ Garden and so Callie Smith and I were sort of brainstorming,” says Rattigan.  “It was a success last year for the Highland Farmers Market just to have first of the season sale, before all of the marketing started, so I thought I would combine the two projects.  We’ve been planting vegetable starts and flowers and some native plants with the kids, from seed mostly, and then some things were donated and the Rockingham Co-op they donated some potting soil for it.”

The Plant Sale is Friday, May 19, from 3:30 to 5:30, at The Highland Center Pavilion.

“We chose some seeds from a Virginia seed company called Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and they have some local varieties of tomatoes and peppers,” says Rattigan.  “So, we have a Doe Hill bell pepper and a West Virginia heirloom slicing tomato that’s called Mountaineer Delight, or something like that.  We’ll have other peppers and some interesting gourds and pumpkins, and snap peas and kale and cabbage, some fingerling potatoes.  We’ll have a large variety of things, plus every other vendor’s going to have their own unique array of things too.”

Also on Friday, May 19, following the Plant Sale, The Highland Center is hosting a Community Appreciation Dinner.  The dinner begins at 6pm and will offer homemade soup, bread and dessert.  Free will donations will be accepted.

For more information on both events, programs@thehighlandcenter.org or call 540-468-1922.

Story By

Bonnie Ralston

Bonnie Ralston is the Assistant Station Coordinator at WVLS and a Highland County news reporter. She began volunteering at Allegheny Mountain Radio in the fall of 2005. In 2006 she became an AMR employee and worked in Bath County for eight years as the WCHG Station Coordinator and then as the news reporter there. She began working in radio while in college and has stayed connected to radio, in one way or another, for more than thirty years. She grew up in Staunton, Virginia, while spending a lot of time on her family’s farm in Deerfield, Virginia. She enjoys spending time outside, watching old TV shows and movies and tending to her chickens.

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