SAPS SUMMER TOURS

Thomas Hollow Nursery

The tour will begin at 10 am on Tuesday, July 18. Please be prompt.

10547 Oak Grove Rd, Bristol VA

(NB: when putting the address into a GPS be sure to enter Oak Grove as two separate words otherwise you will definitely get lost and end up very far away)

This nursery specializes in trees and shrubs which they generally raise from small starter plants. They sell both young and more mature sized trees and shrubs. They also carry a number of perennials. They carry unusual cultivars as well as the common-ly available ones.

This visit will take the form of a guided tour. The processes of the nursery business will be ex-plained to deepen your understanding of the time, effort and knowledge required to bring a sapling to marketable size. Additionally, the guide will ex-plain why they favor certain cultivars. There will be lots of opportunities to ask questions and browse after the guided portion of the tour.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

Each August SAPS sponsors Homegrown Tomato Fest to extol the virtues of this juicy red fruit. The Thirteenth Annual Homegrown Tomato Fest will take place Saturday, August 12, 2017, from 8-11 a.m. at the Kingsport Farmers’ Market, Center Street & Clinchfield Street in Kingsport and will feature toma-to contests, free tomato tasting, cooking demonstrations, and more. So get started growing your tomatoes and plan to enter them to in contests for Best Tasting, Biggest, Prettiest, Ugliest, Most Bizarre and/or Best Dressed. Make your favorite salsa recipe to enter in the Best Salsa Contest. Volunteer to help on this fun morning with fellow SAPS members.

Volunteers are needed to help slice tomatoes, staff the salsa booth, coordinate children’s activities, etc. If you can help contact Dennis Marshall, Tomato Fest Chairman, at 423-288-3675 or dmarshall@chartertn.net. For Master Gardeners your time counts for your volunteer hours.