Created in 2004 to raise funds for charity and recognize talented, local, up-and-coming musical acts, The 2010 Muddy River Jam Festival was a 2-day festival where over 80 bands and electronic acts performed. Beyond just music, the event creates a family-like community by encouraging overnight camping onsite at the Salem County Fairgrounds outside of Philadelphia.

The lineup for 2010 was incredible. Multiple stages went off all weekend and featured great performances by The Join, Perpetual Groove, and many others. General Hydroponics was proud to sponsor the event alongside Vitamin Water. GH gave out tons of the General Organics Sample Boxes, and Chill and Randall were on hand to talk with everyone about music and growing. We are also especially proud to say that much of the entire Muddy River festy was coordinated by GH’s own Andy Troutman. Andy and his team pulled off a wonderful weekend!

Everyone on the east coast, be on the lookout for next summer’s 7th year of the MRJF, bigger and better than ever! Head to muddyriverjamfestival.com for all the details, press information and sponsorship opportunities. Be sure to check out their videos too! See you next year!

The SF TradeShow Shirt is insane. Super. Fresh. View it larger here.

From the MaxYield publisher, Linda Jepson:

Join us at the 7th Annual San Francisco Indoor Gardening Expo July 24-25, 2010 at the Fort Mason Center on the bay for the Industry’s Biggest Trade Show of the Year!

Exhibitors from around the world will be displaying their latest distinctive indoor gardening products and technologies. This expo unites the industry on a global platform to network, educate and do business on Saturday, July 24 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, July 25 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. General Public is welcome Sunday, July 25 from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. to discover water-wise and organic techniques for growing healthier plants and produce.

Whether you’ve just started gardening or are an aficionado, there will be something for everyone at this year’s expo.

For many summers, General Hydroponics has been a major sponsor of the world’s largest reggae festival, in Humboldt, California. In the beginning, it was known as Reggae on the River, and in recent years was called Reggae Rising. The festival was the highlight of our events calendar. “Reggae” was the perfect party. Endless music and 20,000 of the nicest people you could ever meet. We stoked the crowd with free samples, gave away limited edition t-shirts, and partied non-stop all weekend. But, structural shifts have once again rocked the foundations of the festival.

In 2010, for the first time in 5 years, GH is not going to be up on the Eel River for a summer Reggae festival. Instead, we are going to branch out in new venues. We are still going to support all the festival fans as Reggae reworks it’s programming, by continuing with our sponorships. We will be making a return to Earthdance, heading to the East Coast for the Muddy River Jam Festival and we are very excited to announce a new event to our lineup, Power to the Peaceful. It is a unique, lively event unlike any other, held September 11 and 12th in Golden Gate Park. Like Reggae, it’s got great, consciousness raising music acts, but it has something Reggae never had, a skate ramp!!! We can’t wait to get the vans loaded and get out on the road! See you there!

Power to the Peaceful 2009 photo by Paul Devoto

GH sent a great team to Maker Faire Bay area, headed by Luke Silverman. Karlo, our engineering assistant, also came and he took the shots I’m posting today.

They spent the weekend at our booth, which was filled with lush plants and examples of hydro systems. But my favorite part was the cush leather sofa with a perfect view of the music stage and the OkGo performance.

One of the most famous visitors to the Maker Faire is the Electric Giraffe. She walks around the lot dropping house beats. No, seriously. She’s standing in front of the Ray Gun Gothic Rocket Ship, a 4 story installation from another place and time. To get a better view, click the picture for a larger image link.

I don’t even know what this is, but its on fire and it looks like it spins. In my book, that makes it awesome!

Have you seen the Mentos and Diet Coke videos? Where they do the Bellagio Fountains? This is their soda rocket bike. This video from their Maker Faire 2009 show is epic.

Check out Maker Faire Re-Cap: Part 1, and stay tuned for more.

A maker is a person who builds- who does- who creates. Makers as individuals are people, together they are a movement. You might be familiar with their slogans: “If you can’t open it, you don’t own it!” or “You are going to poke your eye out!” A maker is anyone with a desire to hack their computer, hack their media or hack their tools. Our favorite makers are the ones who hack their food supply by building hydroponic urban gardens. We love makers with plants that twitter their need for water. And who can forget makers who build micro controllers for their gardens with nails from the hardware store as their soil condition probes.

To start our introduction to Maker Faire, I’m going to use this fast-paced action montage. The music is from GH’s very own Andy Graham. Andy is a musical genius, and his instrument of choice is the didgeridoo. He is our resident inventor, who spends most of his time as an engineering fixer. For many people, his music is the soundtrack of the Maker Faire. If you’ve ever called General Hydroponics, you will instantly recognize him as our alternative to “on hold” muzak. But his most important role is as the house drummer for the GH after-hours-jam-band. More on Andy later, for now, enjoy the tour:

The festival sounded like a fantastic success, with a lot of people learning about a variety of gardening practices. At GH, we love helping stores connect with their community through local events, activities and gardening education. The crew over at Rocky Mountain Hydroponics did a great job informing the festival visitors of the rocking growing abilities of the new General Organics line!

When in the Golden, CO area be sure to check out Rocky Mountain Hydroponics and Organics for all your General Hydroponics and General Organics product needs!

The team behind Urban Garden Magazine has been working hard to create a new hydro event called Grow 2010. They just wrapped up their show in Manchester, UK, and sent the video above as a nice overview. If you don’t live in the UK, no worries. They will be hosting a second event in the US in October, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Can’t wait!

This year at Earthdance, we collected $5 donations for our General Hydroponic T-Shirts and General Organics Sample Packs. All the proceeds are being given to the Redwood Forest Foundation. In total, we raised $1,110.00! The foundation is a Mendocino County organization dedicated to sustaining the stunning and unique ecology of the redwood forests. Often when we think of redwoods, we think of massive towering trees, but there are many small and delicate plants living in the ecosystem as well. I’ve posted a shot I took of an orchid that is native to the redwood forests here. It’s so pretty, and so exotic, and it needs our protection. Here is some more information about the RFF, from their website:

What We Do

We are striving to create a model of “working community forests” by purchasing and sustainably managing the once great redwood forests surrounding the communities of the redwood region in northwestern California. This will be for the social, environmental and economic benefit of all our citizens in perpetuity, by returning net profits directly back to the communities served.

RFFI wants its forest management practices to demonstrate respect for the integrity of forest systems. Sustainable habitat will benefit our community and our forest industry by providing high quality water, air, and forest products along with the open space that north coast residents treasure.

The jobs created by the sustained flow of forest products will provide a family-friendly income. The long-term profits will benefit the community through augmentation of existing county budgets for education, roads and public welfare. Finally, the forest will provide a space for young and old to enjoy in culturally diverse ways.

“Not just a festival focused on music, but rather a festival of spiritual consciousness, environmental and political activism and awareness…” – Jambase.com

The 13th annual Earthdance Festival will take place at the renowned Black Oak Ranch off HWY 101 in Laytonville, CA on September 25th, 26th, 27th. The ranch is also home to many well known activists and artists, including Wavy Gravy’s Camp Winnarainbow for children. For 2009, Earthdance Northern California will unite with over 350 locations in 60 countries across the world to create the most conscious global festival of our time.
The Earthdance Northern California Festival will bring together an unprecedented line-up of conscious musicians, visual artists, DJ’s, speakers and activists, who believe in a sustainable future for our planet. Working with the theme of “Blessing the Children,” the festival will host 5 music stages and will feature high profile conscious artists from many genres of the international music scene, including World, Electronica, Hip Hop, Folk and Jazz. Also included will be an indigenous elder’s council, made up of indigenous elders from many nations, who will share wisdom and sacred ceremony.

Please check out the Earthdance website for more information. This is an amazing event, and if you make it, please visit the General Hydroponics booth! We will be there with our hydroponic plants and flowers, free samples of our organic line, and as always, our t-shirts! I’ll have more details as the weekend approaches.

According to their website, “Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe . . .  [Y]ou are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community.”

It’s a great organization that empowers people through their own hard work. I am glad GH chose such a great organization to donate to with their awesome wearable art.

We gave out sample packs with 6 of the products from the General Organics Line. And free T-shirts with the GO Bio Root art. 

I grabbed a shot of one girl who had so much loot she and her friends threw it all in a shopping cart!

I was pleased to see that while the show promoted consumption, it was also responsible and sustainable in collecting waste from the event too.

Gen Hydro was promoting their new General Organics line, which is organic and vegan and works in soil, coco, and hydro.  They also had their traditional nutrient lines and supplements on hand to talk about.

The whole crew was really involved with customers and anyone that just wanted to hang out and talk about gardening.

The booth was really chill and was covered in the new art from the General Organics line.  GH reminds you, “Don’t just be seaweed, garden with seaweed“.

Here you see some more GH murals and the awesome annual Reggae Rising t-shirt, or lack thereof.

There were plenty of samples given out to customers on Sunday.  GH recommends Azamax for pests in your garden.

The music was off the hook.  Here is Lutan Fyah.  There were other world-renowned bands like Capleton, the Original Wailers, and Luciano.

This year’s Reggae Rising was amazing.  Be sure to get your tickets next year and stop by the Gen Hydro booth.  If you want to see more pics of Reggae Rising, be sure to check out the General Hydroponics Flickr stream.