Over the weekend of April 12-13th I attended the PA Herb & Garden Festival in York, PA. This was my first time attending and what a full weekend this was. My favorite aspect of this festival was the grassroots feel about the festival. The entrance fee was $5.00 per day. Upon entering the festival there was a mini herb garden and a pretty trellis to walk under as you entered and exited the main room.
Mini herb garden
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Welcoming trellis
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In the exhibition room there were a decent amount of vendors and side space for special workshops.
Main room
My favorite space of the festival was the classroom. On Saturday I spent the entire day attending one class after another...back to back...in my book this equals serious joy!! Saturday's classes were:
Creating a Rain Garden
Square Foot Gardening
Edible Gifts from the Garden
Comfrey - A healing Herb to be Renewed
Steam Distillation Demonstration of Herbs to Produce Essential Oils.
Creating a Rain Garden
Square Foot Gardening
Edible Gifts from the Garden
Comfrey - A healing Herb to be Renewed
Steam Distillation Demonstration of Herbs to Produce Essential Oils.
Square Foot Gardening
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Steam Distillation Demonstration of Herbs to Produce Essential Oils
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Combined, the hour long workshops offered a lot of useful information and demonstrations. I especially enjoyed meeting Sue from Sue's Salves. Sue and I are both big fans of Comfrey and I appreciate so much her sharing some of her home grown Comfrey root with me which I have planted in my garden. Along with some of her spritzers (Sue has vegan items but uses beeswax in her Salves), I purchased Sue's Planting by the Moon Calendar, which is available for purchase on her website suesalves.com. It is easy to tell Sue put a lot of effort into creating this calendar and she also offers information on Astrology & Herbology on her site. So far I'm digging the calendar...pun intended!
Sue and me
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Comfrey root
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I credit my Mom for my being drawn to the botanical world so at the end of Saturday I decided to head back to her home and bring her back with me the next day. On the way, I decided to forage for some vegan food and this also went super well. After plugging 'vegan food' in my Yelp app, I arrived at Nittany Pizza in York, PA which from the reviews, offered vegan options. She shoots...she scores! Nittany Pizza is welcoming and is Felix of the Odd Couple clean. Their vegan menu is fabulous, you know when it's fabulous (rather than choosing which salad you want or going for the usual pasta primavera option) when you can't decide what to have. I love BBQ sauce so I went with the BBQ faux-chicken sandwich. When the sandwich arrived at my table I saw and then tasted the promise land of sandwiches...Nitanny Pizza uses pizza dough as the bread!
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Sunday my Mom and I returned to the Festival. We shopped around and then attended the workshop, The Cold Process of Herbal Soap Making. I purchased some lovely herbs including a new one for me, fringed Lavender. Oh by the way...I loved the fact that there was both a coat AND plant check at the festival. Now that is attention to detail!
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On the way home, it turned out to be yet another vegan foodie day. Craving that pizza dough bread I took my mom to Nittany Pizza. This time I tried the vegan faux-chicken parmesan which was fabulous. I can't remember what my mom had but it wasn't vegan and she liked it.
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Last stop of the weekend was The Franklin Fountain ice cream shop in Philadelphia. They usually offer vanilla and chocolate vegan ice cream (sometimes they have a 3rd flavor) and some sorbets, and there are also some vegan toppings. This time around I chose vanilla ice cream with chocolate and peanut butter sauces. At times, they also have vegan whipped cream, which doesn't really have a whipped consistency. It's not the best vegan ice cream but it's a treat when better vegan options aren't available. If you visit Franklin Fountain, be prepared to spend about $10.00 for a sundae and prepared to stand in line, rain or shine.
The Franklin Fountain
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Vegan ice cream sundae
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I really enjoyed this weekend and am looking forward to going to the Festival next year.
For more information about the PA Herb and Garden Festival, please visit their website.
For more information about the PA Herb and Garden Festival, please visit their website.
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