Sunshine Community Gardens Plant Sale

On the first Saturday of March, you can fill your spring garden with organic and heirloom vegetable starts and herbs at Sunshine Community Gardens Plant Sale. Choose from over 120 colorful varieties of tomatoes, 64 varieties of peppers, a wide selection of herbs, ornamentals and more. Nourish those babies and the rest of your garden with bag-your-own compost.

Local arts and crafts vendors and live music round out this annual rite of spring for the whole family.

The festival is a family-friendly gathering with live music, entertainment for the children, a silent auction, and booths offering both food and drink. And then of course, there are the plants. Plant sale visitors will find hundreds of varieties of organic vegetables, medicinal and culinary herbs, ornamental plants and flowers. Whether you want an heirloom, or a hybrid developed just for our area, this is the sale for you. Culinary plants include tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, eggplants, and tomatillos. Flowers and ornamentals include skullcap, butterfly weed, agaves, and many more. Visitors can also purchase a bag of rich compost to get their garden started.

Festival-goers can stroll through the area and get a glimpse of what a group of hardworking gardeners can accomplish. Though most of the members use their plots for vegetables and culinary herbs, there are also ornamental flowers, vines, exotics and wildflowers. No two gardens are exactly alike. In addition to the growing plots, Sunshine Garden houses a chicken coop, two large greenhouses, and several small mountains of mulch and compost.

Started in 1979, the Sunshine Gardens is a cooperative arrangement with the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired to provide a garden oasis in the middle of the city. It is Austin's largest and longest lived community garden. For 32 years, the Garden has been on the forefront of green practices and natural gardening in Austin. Garden members take pride in promoting healthy living through natural, chemical-free gardening.

Gardeners also enjoy giving back. In 2009, the garden donated over 2000 pounds of fresh organic produce to the Micah 6 food bank, which serves the needy and homeless in the University of Texas area. And gardeners provide technical and material support for plots utilized by students and teachers at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired to grow produce for sale in local farmer's markets.

If you are not a gardener, but are interested in supporting this community enterprise, send a tax-deductible donation to "SCG" at PO Box 302349 Austin, TX 78703-0040.