I attended seed swaps and harvest festivals, Mother Earth Fairs and the Philadelphia flower show. I have read multiple books from landscaping and pruning to genetics of tomatoes and spent endless hours on Youtube and the internet at large. I've met with multiple Master Gardeners and picked the brains of every plant related professional I can get to even talk to me. ( everyone is excited but no one really knows how to translate to high school students). Every single thing I attend always feeds me at least 1 fresh idea or piece of knowledge to immediately implement and my students are very aware of the quest we are all on together for knowledge.
In all of this, I started following Kathy Jentz from the Washington Gardener Magazine as she puts on the great seed swaps I continue to attend each year. She posted all about MANTS last year and I was a little miffed as to why I had not heard of this and why was I not there!? In preparation to attend MANTS this year I noticed it was during a work day and got cold feet. I decided to reach out on social media to see if this event was worth it for an educator. The people of MANTS were SO supportive and even offered me a pass, that I just couldn't say no. My principal got behind me and so did our science director at the county level providing me with professional leave to miss a day of instruction. Wow. What an experience. Seeing the support for our program is very uplifting this time of year.
I want to recap in as brief a space as possible my experience.
The venue and parking were great and our bus driver for the shuttle was hilarious. It was a great start to the day. The vast number of vendors blew me away in person and they are all plant related. Plants EVERYWHERE! I don't think I stopped smiling all day. I learned that there are so many nurseries out there producing amazing varieties of plants that you will never, ever see in a big box store. These nurseries sell to local garden centers who hand select what they think their customers would like to buy. The evergreen selection on display was mind boggling. I also learned that this field is hiring, is male dominated, and mostly drives pick up trucks.