There are several things happening this weekend in DeSoto, and they all line up nicely without too much overlap. Here’s your line-up:

If you’re lucky enough to swing an invite, you can attend the 2nd Annual DeSoto Fine Artisan Exhibition awards Friday night from 6-8 PM. For the rest of us, there’s the general admission time, but we’ll get to that.

Saturday morning, there’s the Desoto Farmers’ Market Highly-Anticipated, Much-Loved, Yes,-We-Parade-with-Little-Leaguers-and-Like-It, Tractor Parade at 10 AM. You can watch the parade anywhere along Main St. between Mahn’s Funeral Home and St. Louis St.

The market will open after that with plant sales from 11AM until 2PM at their regular location behind St. Andrew’s UMC on Rock Rd, so you can catch a few of the Little League Teams in the parade while the market vendors get set-up. They’ll welcome you with bedding plants, baked goods, and some craft items. If you’re looking to get some broccoli plants, this might be your shot.

Now, back to that 2nd Annual DeSoto Fine Artisan Exhibition. General admission is $2 and runs from noon until 5PM on Saturday and Sunday. It is at the DeSoto Community Center, and you might recognize some market vendors’ work there. Be on the lookout for baskets, iron-work, etc.

That gets you through Saturday, so on to Sunday. You can visit the Franciscan Sisters out west of town on Sunday afternoon. Just west of De Soto, the Sisters have 40 lovely acres and you are welcome this Sunday to take a hike down to the pond, tour the organic garden and enjoy either or both awesome gardening talks.

At 3:00, Joe Bean (local Master Gardener & the fellow behind the amazing De Soto Community Herb Garden) will give the talk Herbs How To. Joe’s a great guy and you won’t want to miss his presentation! Bring along your herb growing questions. At 4:00, Maurice will present Organic Vegetable Gardening 101. He’ll speak about his love for organic gardens and the various St. Louis-area gardening projects he has begun over the years as well examine basic organic techniques. The celebration gets started anytime after noon on Sunday, so feel free to come and enjoy a lovely late-April Sunday afternoon and relax at the Franciscan Sisters’ place! They’ll also have lots of Sister-sown heirloom tomato, eggplant and pepper plants available for donation.

(Directions to the Fransiscan Sisters place on Peter Moore: In De Soto just head out west on “H” Highway beginning at Walgreens and go a little more than a mile till you get to a curve in the road and Peter Moore Lane will be on your right. Turn there onto Peter Moore and keep an eye to the right. Very soon you’ll see the Franciscan Sisters’ sign in their hay field on the right. Turn off there and follow the yellow ribbons through the field and park on their lawn. Rain forecasts being what they are, be prepared to walk and potentially drive through some muck.)

That will cap off a lovely weekend, and of course you’ll need places to eat, and there are several in DeSoto. Of course, we’re partial to Pogolino’s because they sponsor the Farmers’ Market!