Bakersfield College’s horticulture and agriculture programs will be holding the ninth annual Garden Fest on April 26 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at BC.

The one-day festival will host over 150 vendors, including booths on gardening, pets, cooking, arts and crafts, a farmer’s market, and a live broadcast of KERN 1180’s Country Garden Radio program.

The event includes numerous booths run by BC’s students and staff, including the Renegade Ranch trailer which will be open with items for sale like trail mix, candied apples and smoothies.

“We have BC departments and organizations participating with booths, handing out information, or raffling stuff off for fundraisers. We have the BC archives, the alumni; we’ve got the centennial committee and the tutoring center coming out. The culinary arts students come and they cook breakfast and lunch,” said Sally Sterns, an Environmental Horticulture Technician at BC and Garden Fest’s organizer.

Sterns believes that Garden Fest is an entertaining way for the Bakersfield community to get in touch with the regions agricultural roots, while supporting the agriculture and horticulture departments.

“If you’re just interested in learning how to grow plants, you can come talk to people, we have our horticulture students here that give out information. We have free how-to seminars with industry professionals, and they give away things during the course of the day,” she said.

“The last seminar will be a grilling seminar with one of the chefs from [BC’s] culinary arts department. They usually grill something really tasty and then we raffle off the barbecue.”

Another major part of the festival is helping current BC students get more involved with horticulture and agriculture.

“We have industry professionals in all areas of agriculture, so if a student is interested in working for the US forest service or the BLM, or they want to know what it’s like to work and operate in a nursery, we have those professionals here, that day.”