In honor of Earth Day, the Plant City Commons Community Garden is hosting a new, unique event.
The Earth, Wind & Garden Celebration will allow the community to take a peek at one of Plant City’s best-kept secrets. The garden, located at 2001 E. Cherry St., has beds for its members to grow their own fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers as well as a greenhouse and aquaponics lab for workshops and unique events. But the property is also home to the botanical garden, which is open from sunup to sundown for the community to enjoy.
“It really amazes me that I still meet so many people that don’t know we have a botanical garden or community garden here,” Shannon Shearer, treasurer of PCCCG, said. “It belongs to the whole community. We don’t have anything else like this in town and I hope by continuing to have events like our Earth Day celebration, we will spread the word that this hidden gem is here and open to everyone. We don’t have anything else like this in town and the garden really belongs to the whole community.”
Shearer said that during a board meeting for PCCCG, the group discussed what they should do to honor Earth Day. It was important to all of them to host a special event, so they decided to roll out the red carpet and bring a massive outdoor event to the garden.
The event is completely free and will have music, food, workshops, children’s activities, vendors, garden tours, a plant sale and more. Shearer said there will be a sensory scavenger hunt for the children who arrive that will ask them to “touch something soft” or “smell something sweet.” MAKE Plant City will also be on site to host a mural painting for the youth.
Starting at 11 a.m. and running every hour until 2 p.m., the PCCCG will also have free demos available to bring an educational aspect to the fun day. There will be food demos, garden demos and plant demos. The Plant City Water Resource Department will be giving a free workshop on being water wise in our yards. UF IFAS will host a workshop on summer soil.
Shearer, who is also a prominent chef in the community, will lead a demonstration on how to use lettuce — which was grown at the garden in the aquaponics lab — to make healthy lettuce wraps. There will also be a demonstration on how to harvest lemongrass from the plant and transform it into a delicious tea.
Vendors will be spread throughout the garden. They include The Whoopie Pie Guys from Lakeland, who sell whoopie pies and dips, and Umami Smoke, a local food truck known for its delectable Asian/Southern fusion cooking. Shearer will also be on site with vegetarian and vegan food options including magic noodles, which are dyed blue naturally via plants and turn purple when a special sauce is added to the mix.
Other experiences will include a PCCCG member selling raised planter boxes, a vendor selling bird houses made from teapots, Thai yoga, local artist Jeremy Rivera hosting his works and more. Attendees can also take part in a plant sale at the event that will feature both edibles and ornamentals. You can pick up everything from tomato and pepper plants to unique, one-off plants featured at the event. Jarrett-Scott Ford will have electric vehicles on site and the botanical gardens will be open for tours.
“We only have one Earth and we need to take care of it,” Shearer said. “The more plants and trees we can grow the better our environment, our air quality, our water quality, everything is. The more we take care of our earth, the more our earth will take of us. This is going to be a really fun event for the whole community, but we are also hoping that it makes people reflect for a moment on the environment and what they can do to help make the world a little better.”
The event is sponsored by Suncoast Credit Union, Publix Supermarkets and Jarrett-Scott Ford and will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.
If you go
What: Earth, Wind & Garden Celebration
Where: 2001 E. Cherry St.
When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 10
Cost: Free to attend.