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.