Empire Market Birthday Bash and Goats in the Garden

***Now TWO EVENTS IN ONE!!!***

**New date for Goats in the Garden due to construction in the courtyard**

We are turning 7!

Come celebrate the Market’s Birthday Bash with us!

Join us for a day of fun, frivolity, and festivities, including the following:

*Sign our birthday card!

*New merch being released!

*New Market poster (designed by Joplin High School students!) revealed

*Come help us sing and get some tasty cake!

*more to be announced!

We will also have all of our usual amazing local vendors, so you’ll be able to grab produce, baked goods, fresh coffee, hot specialty foods, bath & body, artisan goods, and more!

What better way to manifest some birthday cheer than with GOATS in a GARDEN?!?!? Now with party hats!

A few of our dedicated farmers will have their goats here in the Community Gardens. Come help them get some socialization time with humans! We will also have other community and education groups with their own groups of goats, so you get to decide who is cutest.

While you frolic with the goats, you can also check out our Community Garden beds–we still have a few available for this planting season, so you can request an application. You can also relax in our fabulous shade structure and participate in some fun make-and-take crafts!

We will have experts around all day to answer questions about goats, gardens, and who knows what else, so come say hi!

Missouri Master Naturalist, Chert Glades Chapter, will have a booth about the “Greatest Of All-Time” plants. They will be giving out handouts of the Top 10 Grow Native list of plants. Make sure you stop by and visit.

Missouri's Native Champions

G.O.A.T. stands for 'Greatest of All Time,' as in the ultimate champs. In Missouri, this means superstar plants that do wonders for nature…native plants that birds, bees, and butterflies depend on to thrive.

If you're a gardener curious about these amazing plants, swing by the 'Goats in the Garden' event at Empire Market on March 9th. The Missouri Master Naturalist, Chert Glades Chapter, will be there to reveal Top 10 picks for different interests and garden situations. 

Do you want to attract hummingbirds, butterflies, and other pollinators to your garden? Are you trying to save water, or do you have a problem with too much water? Is your yard all sun or all shade? Are you trying to connect children to nature, or do you just want things to look pretty? 

Drop by our table and discover which plants might fit your needs in the very best way.  Let's level up Missouri's green game, one awesome plant at a time!     

Look for us on March 9, 2024 from 10:00 - 2:00

Empire Market

998 E 3rd St, Joplin, MO 64801

Plant a Native Garden

Prairie booster make over museum grounds

Joplin History & Mineral Museum Prairie Restoration

On a cold but sunny January morning, Chert Glades members brought rake and foot-stomping power to seeding native plants into about 5000 square feet of property at the Joplin History & Mineral Museum. The museum envisions prairie-like plantings north and south of the building as well as a garden space for native shrubs and forbs to be planted later this spring.

While the prairie planting will take several years to mature, the garden space, directly in front of the building, should hint at what’s to come later this year! In the future, Chert Glades members envision this space as ideal for showing residents and visitors how beautiful and functional native plants can be for their own yards!

Chapter members worked with volunteers from Liberty Utilities to spread seed supplied through U.S. Fish & Wildlife and Missouri Prairie Foundation.

V. Frankoski

tamping in the seed

Getting directions

C. Naff, R. Naff, A. Wild, V. Frankoski, K. Smith, & E. Bowyer (not pictured Jill Franks & Sara Fischer)

Photos by C. Naff

Orb Weavers