National Heirloom Expo

The National Heirloom Exposition is a not-for-profit event centered around the pure food movement, heirloom vegetables, and anti-GMO activism. Last year I went for three days with My Friend From Canada. It was absolutely incredible. I saw things that I had never seen before - like Cuckoo Maran eggs and SO many types of garlic.

Seeing such beauty, such variety - well, I wanted to do it all. Raise chickens, goats, turkeys. Grow incredible varieties of tomatoes, cucumbers, apples, flowers, winter squash, Of course, I wanted one of everything. 

Fast forward to this year and Seven Cats Farm has 2 Cuckoo Maran chickens and my attempt at growing different winter pumpkins was a failure (I give the gophers and crows credit for the failure, by the way).

This year, the Lovey and I got away for 24 hours and soaked up as much of the show as we could. After having two growing seasons under my belt, I think I have a better idea of what grows here, what doesn't grow, what the soil needs and what physically I can and can't do. Armed with this knowledge we spoke with vendors and speakers. We discovered fish emulsions that can be used in drip lines, mustard therapy for soil and discovered some fruit varieties we'd like to grow. We got some samples of things, including ground up bugs. Verdict is still out on that one.

We also saw some just cool stuff. Here are some photos.