GrowFest

Always the First Saturday in May!

Join us on Saturday, May 3 from 9am to 3pm for a day-long festival featuring vegetables, herbs, pollinator-friendly perennials and native plants as well as plenty of people, products and information sessions to help you feel like part of a community that’s growing together. Our Hauck Botanic Garden home will be clad in its spring finest, and we’ll have the fun stuff that makes for a good festival, too.

Whether you’ve never tended a plant before or you’ve been growing for decades…whether you have a backyard plot or a bed in a community garden or some pots on your balcony…we’re here to help you find success on your terms.

We can help you find the best materials. We know which plants grow each and every month of the year in our region. We know where to find the best plants and seeds that thrive in our climate. And we can help you set up your garden for success, no matter where you live and garden—even if, like us, you’re in the middle of the city! More than anything, we’re here to help keep you from quitting. The benefits of gardening are bountiful, and no one should be excluded from experiencing them.

Because at the CGC, no one grows alone!

Plants

We’re sourcing and growing favorite and hard-to-find plants to set you up for a rewarding and successful growing season—over 400 different species! This year, we’re focusing primarily on shade plants and those that produce food, including:

Classic warm weather crops as well as CGC-grown rare and heirloom vegetable starts and interesting seeds
A rainbow of herbs, both familiar and off-the-beaten-path
Three times the varieties of native and native cultivar shrubs as last year, including dwarf options for urban gardeners working in tight spaces
Native plants appropriate for spring planting, including many shade-loving species and ephemerals (for sun-loving natives, join us for the Fall Native Plant Festival the first Saturday after Labor Day!)
Shade-loving native cultivars
Native trees

There will NOT be an online sale this year, so plan to come see us on May 3 between 9am and 3pm for the in-person festivities! First come, first served. Come early for the best selection, then stay for the rest of the day’s activities.

Educational Sessions & Demos

Throughout the day, we’ll have free educational speakers, panels and demonstrations around topics related to urban agriculture and growing food. Here’s the 2025 lineup:

Our local agricultural memory is a great recorder of our agricultural relationship with the earth. What are your early memories of urban agriculture and your relationship with local food? Come to listen and learn from community members while we discuss how our ecological practices, knowledge and experiences have changed over the years and what we look forward to in the future.
Location: Auditorium
Join Justin Dean of Carriage House Farms for a cooking demonstration.
Location: Auditorium
Wondering how to keep your hand tools in good working order? Stop by this ongoing demonstration to see tool sharpening in action.
Location: Green Flea (parking lot)
Learn planting tips for some of your favorite herbs, container selection, harvesting techniques and uses for some common herbs. Bring your herb questions and have them answered! A kitchen herb container will be planted as a demonstration.
Location: Herb Garden

Green Flea

The Green Flea is a booth at GrowFest that turns donated used tools and garden treasures into funds for the CGC. Whether you donate an item, shop the booth or both, you’re directly supporting our work. Learn more about the Green Flea and how you can help!

Kids’ Activities

Stop by the Kid Activities area for crafting, exploration and—of course—a little gardening, too! Make a card with upcycled materials, create a small plant pot out of newspaper and fill it with soil and seeds of your choosing, or check out our worm bin to see the red wigglers’ world of decomposition in action and up close.

Music

We’re excited to feature several local Cincinnati-area musicians during the festival. Here’s the lineup:

10-11am: Matthew Wallenhorst
11am-1pm: The Interstate Commerce Commission Organ Quartet
1-2pm: Deej Goosey

Food, Drinks & Fun

We’ll have food trucks, a beer garden area, our beloved bake sale, raffle prizes, vendors and kids’ activities, so there’s something for the whole family to enjoy.

Plant Sitters

We want you to be able to attend an educational session, grab a bite to eat or enjoy the grounds unencumbered! You can drop your purchases off at our Plant Sitters booth, located in the Green Learning Station parking lot, then pick them up on your way home.

Item Pickup

Don’t want to carry your purchases to your car? No problem! We will have friendly volunteers available to help load your car. Just pull up to the reserved spots on Oak Street (facing Reading Road) near our driveway.

Location, Parking & Public Transportation

GrowFest will take place at the Civic Garden Center: 2715 Reading Rd., Cincinnati, OH 45206.

Parking will NOT be available on our grounds or in our Green Learning Station parking lot due to festival events. Thanks to the generosity of Children’s Hospital, we’re happy to offer parking options within easy walking distance to our grounds:

538 Oak Street — handicap accessible parking will be available in this lot (across the street from our grounds). NO PARKING in the last two rows along Linton Street.
400 Oak Street
2806 Reading Road
624 Oak Street

Cincinnati Metro provides bus service via Route 43 that stops within a five-minute walk from the Civic Garden Center of Greater Cincinnati. Trip planning service is available  http://www.go-metro.com/how-to-ride.