How Does Your Garden Grow? Traditional Cache

Parking is available through either gate onto the fairgrounds or across the road.  Please respect that the garden is a work in progress and enjoy its whimsical nature as you stroll through looking at the different beds and plants.  The cache itself is not a large prominent feature of the garden, but you will know it when you see it.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?  Mary’s Garden was established with a grant from Homer Water and Soil Agency as a People’s Garden.  This means that the garden is used to grow food that is available to those who enter as well as being a showplace at the Kenai Peninsula Fairgrounds.  At the end of the season, after the fair is over, all remaining edibles in Mary’s Garden are harvested and donated to the Ninilchik Senior Center. 

Mary’s Garden is named for Mary Hawkins, the founder of the Kenai Peninsula Fair.  Way back in 1951, Mary decided to hold a fair at the end of the summer.  It was held in the basement of the Ninilchik School.  The City of Homer also had a fair that year.  Homer’s fair existed through 1965 when interest waned with the Homer Fair being cancelled for 1966.  The Ninilchik Fair continued to thrive with the public from Homer invited to attend in 1967.  The Ninilchik Fair has grown over the years to encompass ten acres in the main fairgrounds and land across the road that is used for parking.  It has also grown into the Kenai Peninsula Fair reflecting its broad focus for the entire Kenai Peninsula.  As it was in 1951, the fair today, is still a place where people bring things they have grown and made to share with the public who come to wander around to see what the vendors are selling and what their friends and neighbors have made to show.  In addition, the fair serves as an end of the summer party for families to enjoy music, rodeo, and other events for one last weekend before school starts again and schedules have to conform to the needs of children to get regular rest instead of staying up late during our long summer days.

This cache is a traditional cache except for the three days of the fair on the third weekend of August every summer.  On that weekend, the cache evolves into a special treasure box with fair swag and a chance to win a prize through a drawing to be held on the final day of the fair at 2 PM. Help us celebrate International Geocaching Day which generally falls on the Saturday of the Fair weekend.