KINGSPORT — Exchange Place Living History Farm, located at 4812 Orebank Road in Kingsport, invites you to celebrate the blossoming of spring at its 40th annual Spring Garden Fair on April 25 (10 a.m.-5 p.m.) and 26 (noon-5 p.m.). Please join us at the oldest garden fair in our region — and a destination event for area gardeners — to welcome the season with beautiful plants, then stay to travel back to the 1850s to experience life on a historical farm and enjoy heritage craft and animal demonstrations, homemade food, live music, and engaging children’s activities. Admission is $5 for everyone age 12 and older; there is no fee for children under 12.
The Spring Garden Fair features nearly 70 vendors (the most ever!), with thousands of plants for sale, including perennials, annuals, trees and shrubs — with a special focus on herbs, native and heirloom plants (including a wide variety of heirloom tomatoes). Also for sale will be a variety of garden-related arts and crafts, like wind chimes, bird feeders and houses, hand-built pottery, homemade soaps, organic hair and skin oils, flavored cooking extracts, and blown-glass décor, knitted blankets, and jewelry. Whether you are a seasoned gardener or ready to start your first windowsill herb, the fair will offer just what you need — not to mention guidance from the Northeast Tennessee Master Gardeners and other gardening experts.
The Kingsport Community Band opens the fair at 10 a.m. on Saturday; other local musicians will perform every hour throughout the weekend fair.
Children will be busy as bees with fun nature-based crafts. Near the Preston House, children can make flower crowns to take home or wear as they dance around the maypole (Saturday at 2 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m.) to tunes performed by the Junior Apprentice’s (JA) Old-Time Band. The JAs are a group of youth age 12-18 who learn about history and skills associated with rural early American life in Northeast Tennessee. For an additional $5, children can weave a basket at the Schoolhouse with the Tri-State Basket Guild; all fees will be used to purchase feed for Exchange Place’s (EP) beloved animals. Children can also try paper-making on the Roseland porch.
New this year, Talon Ridge Raptor Institute, a Kingsport-based nonprofit, will present their Eurasian eagle-owl and discuss their work to rescue injured raptors and their plans to develop the area’s only raptor rehabilitation facility.
Visit two of EP’s heritage animal residents in the pasture behind the Burow Museum: Bliss, an American Devon milking cow (a female with horns!) and Jenny, a Jerusalem donkey. As a bonus, two baby lambs will be visiting EP for the spring fair. Five chickens can be found behind the demonstration garden.
Keeping a long-standing seasonal ritual, TJ DeWitt will hand-shear EP’s five resident Cotswold sheep in the area between the Burow Museum and Quilt Barn. One sheep will be sheared at each of these times: Saturday at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., then Sunday at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
After visiting the animals, walk next door to Roseland where the Overmountain Weavers Guild will card the wool sheared from EP’s sheep and spin it into yarn as part of their “sheep to shawl” demonstration.
Other heritage attractions: On the front porch of the Preston House, John Alexander will demonstrate heritage broom-making (Saturday only), and Dorothy McMillan will make corn-husk dolls (Saturday and Sunday); completed projects will be available for sale. Interpreters, dressed in traditional attire from the 1850s, will share the history of EP in the Gaines Store, the Gathering Room of the Preston House, the Cook’s Cabin, the Blacksmith Forge, and the Kitchen. Eden’s Ridge Hearth Cookery Society and the JAs will be churning butter (Saturday) and baking (Sunday) in EP’s Kitchen. The JAs will also be working in the garden, around the wood shed, and shaping iron over the Blacksmith Forge. Don’t miss the chance to participate in the JA’s Tennessee Dancing Gourd Spin-Off near the Cook’s Cabin on both days of the fair.
After touring the vendors and demonstrations, visit the Museum Gift Shop, fully stocked with vintage toys and EP-branded items as well as handcrafted arts and crafts from regional artists.
Food vendors will sell barbecue, beef and vegetarian hot dogs, freshly squeezed lemonade, coffee, roasted (on-site) almonds and other nuts, kettle corn, ice cream, cinnamon rolls, cookies, pound cake, coffee cake, bread, and fresh eggs throughout the weekend.
For more information, please visit the Exchange Place (EP) website (exchangeplacetn.org), follow us on Facebook (ExchangePlaceKingsport) and Instagram (exchangeplacetn), or call 423-288-6071.
Exchange Place is a nonprofit, volunteer-run living history farm, educational facility and regional attraction that seeks to preserve, protect, interpret and manage the history, heritage and artifacts related to mid-19th-century farm life in Northeast Tennessee.
Music Schedule for Saturday, April 25
10 a.m.-11 a.m. Kingsport Community Band
11 a.m.-noon PineyPicker Dulcimer Group
noon-1 p.m. Renaissance Strings Dulcimers
1 p.m.-2 p.m. Jim and Ann Gates
2 p.m.-3 p.m. Junior Apprentice Band/Maypole dancing
3 p.m.-4 p.m. “Red and Grey”
Music Schedule for Sunday, April 26
noon-1 p.m. Richard Phillips
1 p.m.-2 p.m. Martha Egan — Bring a pennywhistle to play; no experience required.
2 p.m.-3 p.m. State Street String Band
3 p.m.-4 p.m. JA Band/Maypole dancing
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