MOSES LAKE — It was only an hour into the two-day show, and already there was a pretty sizable crowd at the third annual Columbia Basin Home and Garden Show on Friday. 

“We always have a good turnout on Friday and Saturday,” said Lisa Villegas, owner of Seed Cupboard Nursery in Royal City and the organizer of the show. “Saturday is usually about twice as busy, but Friday’s always good.” 

The slate of vendors filled the Commercial Building at the Grant County Fairgrounds to capacity, with an array of businesses offering window installation, heating and cooling service and real estate services. 

“This is where we cut our teeth three years ago,” said Kip Burns, owner of Blinds for Any Budget and B&B Overhead Door Specialists. “This is the very first show we did and we got eight or 10 (customers). The next year, we got 12 or 15. We average about 15. It's only a two-day show, but it’s one of the best ones.” 

“We do a lot of shows through the (Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce),” said Kevin Farias, owner of Caged Cleaning in Moses Lake. “But this is our first time here at the Home and Garden Show.” 

Caged Cleaning is primarily a window cleaning service, Farias explained, but they also do pressure washing, gutter cleaning and janitorial services and even hang up Christmas lights when the season rolls around. Special events and fairs drive a good chunk of his business, Farias said. 

“Maybe it doesn’t happen on the spot, but they’ll take our business card and then (call us) down the road,” he said. 

“We definitely have a lot of interest,” said Kristina Korotkov, who was representing the window installation company Renewal by Andersen. “A lot of people come and they’re like, ‘Hey, I really want somebody to come down and look at our windows,’ because they’ve heard very good things about our company.” 

The WSU Grant-Adams County Master Gardeners were represented with a booth. Master Gardener Glenn Martin was there to answer questions from attendees about any gardening concerns they might have, and to get the word out about the annual Eco-Gardening Symposium the Master Gardeners put on in conjunction with the Columbia Basin Conservation District. 

“(We’ll) talk about smart water use and about native plants that are drought-tolerant,” Martin said. “We have a whole bunch of native plants that we're going to have on display … and we'll have a lot of vendors talking about irrigation systems and ways to conserve water.” 

Martin said the symposium is April 5 at the ATEC Building at Big Bend Community College. 

“We'll have food there, we'll have vendors, we'll have demonstrations for making flower baskets and so forth,” he said. “It's a good informational thing for people looking to learn more about gardening in our area, specifically the native plants. It's very community-oriented.” 

Not every vendor was directly related to home improvement or gardening. Jamie Huff was there promoting her Moses Lake-based small business The Sweet Edition, offering all-natural skin care products. Shows like the Home and Garden show are a major part of her business, she said. 

“I travel a lot,” she said. “I go to the Tri-Cities, Yakima. I’m an online Etsy shop, so I do a lot of shipping. I make everything myself … I’m a very limited-ingredient household, so it’s changed my life.” 

Grand Destinations Vacations, a travel wholesaler, was front and center in the building giving out tickets for a drawing for a free vacation and sharing what they could offer with attendees. Events like the Home and Garden Show let them reach customers they might not otherwise meet, said sales representative Rosie Williams. 

“We did the Spokane Home Show,” she said. “We just did the Boise Golf Show, we do the Spokane Golf Show … We do all the fairs. Home shows are always great. We love home shows.” 

Besides the usual wares, the Seed Cupboard had something new to present: the first annual Columbia Basin Dahlia and Cut Flower Festival coming in September.  

“We’re going to have a tour of fields in Royal City, Moses Lake, Ephrata and George,” said Marilyn Willauer, who was promoting the event. “(We’ll) fill a pumpkin with dahlias, learn how to decorate a Mason jar with flowers, painting on a canvas bag. We have a well-known dahlia (grower) that sells thousands of dahlias, and she’s going to be our speaker.” 

Willauer said the arrangements for the speaker weren’t finalized, so she declined to name names. Tickets will go on sale March 26, she said. 

The Seed Cupboard opened for the season yesterday, and Villegas said she has been going every which way preparing for that and the show. 

“The two weeks prior to this are just so crazy,” she said. “We just finished planting our annuals for the greenhouse, over 20,000 plants. It’s a crazy couple of weeks.” 

    Kristina Korotkov, left, of Renewal by Andersen talks with Susan Richins at the Columbia Basin Home and Garden Show on Friday.
  

    Nineteen-month-old Silas Glubay takes a moment with a balloon outside the Columbia Basin Home and Garden Show at the Grant County Fairgrounds on Friday.
  

    Elaine Robinson, right, checks out what Jamie Huff, owner of The Sweet Edition, has to offer at the Columbia Basin Home Show on Friday.
  

    The Columbia Basin Home and Garden Show filled the Commercial Building at the Grant County Fairgrounds to capacity with vendors offering everything from windows to garage doors to cleaning to health products.