 Your Crow and County Master Gardener has held their annual Garden Expo as we get ready for spring weather. A.J. Feldman takes you there in this week's Northwood's adventure. Outside of Central Lakes College, it looks like the dead of winter. Cold, snowy and miserable. But inside, it's full of life at the Ready Set Grow Garden Expo. An event like this today is perfect because the weather is terrible outside, so in here is a great event. They can come and learn and visit, network, whatever, find new vendors, find new places to buy plants, that kind of thing. It makes you want to go out there and start digging in the garden right now, but obviously that isn't going to happen right now. But until that day comes, class is in session. The Expo hosts 20 different sessions where speakers educate the crowd on topics such as beekeeping, vegetables and vertical gardening. First of all, we want to inspire them to and take the knowledge that they've gotten today and apply it to their own gardens and hopefully try some new things they haven't done before. It gives me a lot of fresh new ideas for things that I never thought of that I could do and it also helps me answer those questions that I've come up with during the growing season and which I had some source. The Expo hosts a silent auction where proceeds fund scholarships and community projects throughout the year. It also hosts dozens of vendors who love meeting the enthusiastic crowd. We've been here for probably 70 years I would say, having a booth and being speakers and things, but this group is really dedicated to plants and knowledge and they do a wonderful job. Year after year, the community comes back to meet new people and exchange ideas to improve their gardens once the ground thaws. We exchanged email addresses and we said, yeah, I'd like to know more about what you're doing with this and that, so yeah, it's a really good fertile ground for making connections. We hope to continue to educate the public and inspire them to be better gardeners. Reporting in Brainerd for this week's Northwoods Adventure, A.J. Feldman, Lakeland News. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.