There are many Garden Fest Preparations. Each year we save seeds, then plant the garden starts in order to be ready for the growing season. We plant 1/3 acre, help with The Pantry Garden, and also Garden Fest. The North County Food Pantry in Elk WA is a wonderful place to volunteer. Our growing season is short so starting plants ahead of the last frost lets us be able to transplant directly in the garden when the weather warms up enough. There have been many generous volunteers doing this for lots of years before Pete and I started.
Here are two of the biggest squash from last year. The one on the left is a blue Hubbard squash and the one on the right is a monster-sized pumpkin from The Pantry Garden. We won this pumpkin because Peter guessed the weight the closest, a whopping 119 pounds. A lot of seeds from both of these were shared to plant this spring.
Set up
We plant a large abundance of seeds in the first step. Then, transplant them into smaller single containers for the people that come to Garden Fest to pick up starts. At the same time plant in a larger tray (rows) so we can easily transplant directly into the Pantry Garden. We have a community of happy farmers. In the picture below you can see broccoli starts growing and getting ready for the Garden Fest giveaways.
We planted seeds in trays placed on radiant-heated floors, purchasing grow lights to turn on as they started to peek out of the ground. It has been successful! There are starts for the hot peppers, spices, tomatoes, broccoli, squash, Wallawalla onion, and much more. Below is a tray of broccoli getting ready for planting directly into the Pantry garden soon.
Pete and I spend time almost every day doing this kind of transplanting and watering stuff before the garden even goes in. 
These Blue Hubbard squash sprang up and grew like the dickens, Wow. We are hoping to get good peppers this year too.
Fruit tree pruning is a winter garden chore. A lot of people seem to think that you do nothing in the garden all winter long. No, that is not true. On this beautiful sunny brisk day, we went into the garden to make sure our fruit trees are properly pruned so they will be happy when things warm up in spring. Pete came through here a couple of weeks ago, with the tractor to make sure the snow was cleared enough to let us have access to the fruit trees now. It is truly amazing how much this patch of land will transform over the space of the year.
The Bouch Pear tree was planted in 2018 and had only a handful of small-sized fruit at first and slowly the harvest has increased in size and amounts. Now, the fruit is full size and we are able to put away pears in the pantry for dessert all winter long. This past year it decided to go to town producing lots of pear for us and shooting branches straight up with quite a few intertwining branches tangling up in the middle. So, you can see that a lot of pruning will need to be done.
Our Red Haven Peach tree was planted in 2020 and she produced fruit the very first year. These peaches are so juicy that you need to stand over a sink to eat them.