Posts Tagged: festival

It's October - Take the kids to a farm!

Before Halloween comes the harvest festival and the pumpkin patch.

Although most of us don't live on farms or have relatives who farm, the shortening days and the crispness in the air still remind us somehow that it's harvest time. All over California, farmers are opening their gates and sharing their harvest celebrations with the rest of us. What better time to make sure the kids know where pumpkins, corn, and everything else they eat comes from?

Here are some family-friendly harvest celebrations coming up soon:

• Sierra Oro Farm Trail Passport Weekend, Butte County - Saturday & Sunday, Oct. 11, 12
  Passport holders can set their own pace, take self-guided tours of the scenic agricultural trails, meet local farmers and winemakers and sample the amazing bounty of locally-owned wineries and specialty farms located throughout Butte County.
  
  
• Shone Farm Fall Festival, Santa Rosa - Saturday, Oct. 11
  The festival, which marks the Farm's 42nd year, will include activities such as apple pressing, a rotten tomato slingshot game, pumpkin and vegetable picking, hayrides and tours of the 365-acre farm and forest. Santa Rosa Junior College Agriculture & Natural Resources Department students will demonstrate wood milling, compost making, lead tours and introduce visitors to the farm's horses, sheep and chickens, and talk about their upkeep. In addition, children can have their faces painted and make stick horses and other crafts. This free festival runs from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 11. The farm is located at 7450 Steve Olson Lane, Forestville. For more information, visit shonefarm.com.
  
  
• 
  Stehly Farms Organic Pumpkin Patch, San Diego - Sunday, Oct. 12
  Kids are back in school, the nights are (hopefully) getting cooler, and fall is here! What better way to celebrate than some pumpkin picking? Pumpkin Picking. Tractor Rides. Farm Stand. Devil Dogs BBQ. Market Juices. All Ages Welcome! $6, Kids 4 and Under Free
  
  
• Farm & Barn Tour, Placer County - Sunday, Oct. 12
  The whole family will enjoy the PlacerGROWN Farm & Barn Tour, a FREE self-guided expedition of farms, ranches, and vineyards in the beautiful countryside of Placer County. Each farm venue will feature different activities, tours, and demonstrations. Locally grown produce, meats, wine, and more will be available for purchase. Learn more

• PlacerGROWN Harvest Festival, Rocklin - Saturday & Sunday, Oct. 18, 19
  Don't miss the PlacerGROWN Harvest Festival, a FREE event of family fun including a pumpkin patch, pumpkin lighting display at dusk, movie in the park, scarecrow building contest, farmers' market and more.
  
  
• Work Day & Barn Dance, Pescadero - Saturday, Oct. 18
  Celebrate the spirit of community with Pie Ranch at this monthly ritual of touring or working together on the ranch, sharing locally grown food, and then spinning, laughing and dosey-doing together into the night. 
  
  
• Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT) Day at the Pumpkin Patch, Nicasio - Sunday, Oct. 19
  Pick an organic pumpkin, make your own cheese, taste local Marin wine and beer, pick up locally sourced sandwiches, salads and burgers from The Farmer's Wife and Stemple Creek Ranch, and let the kids go crazy with crafts at MALT Day. This event is free and open to the public.
  
  
• Live Earth Farm Harvest Festival, Watsonville - Saturday, Oct. 25
  Celebrate the Bounty of the Pajaro Valley and the Monterey Bay Area! Join us for fun on the farm for the whole family. Honor the changing of the seasons and celebrate the Harvest with us on the farm.

These and many more farm and ranch events can be found on the UC Agritourism Directory, www.calagtour.org, managed as a public service by the UC Small Farm Program.

Have fun!

Turn off your computer, put down your hoe

Feel that chill in the morning air? Autumn's here, school's starting, and soon we'll be bustling about, wearing sweaters, cleaning rain gutters and raking leaves. But first, according to many traditions, it's time to take a break and celebrate the harvest with local farmers.

Many cultures throughout the Northern Hemisphere have long traditions of harvest festivals held around the time of the main harvest in autumn. Most harvest festivals feature feasting, music, romance, dancing and freedom from work, sometimes lasting for days.

In Asia, the Moon Festival is a popular harvest festival celebrated in September or early October by Chinese and Vietnamese people. The Jewish holiday Sukkot, celebrated for seven days in late September to late October, commemorates the agricultural "Feast of Ingathering."

In Britain, harvest festivals have been held since ancient times at the time of the "Harvest Moon", which is the full moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox (about Sept. 22). In two years out of three, the Harvest Moon comes in September, but in some years it occurs in October. The early English settlers' first American Thanksgiving feast celebrated their first harvest in 1621, sometime between September 21 and November 9, most likely in early October.

A century ago, more than half of all Americans were engaged in agriculture. These days, with less than 2 percent of the population involved in farming or ranching, most of us are pretty removed from celebrating the harvest. However, California farmers offer us a lot of chances this Harvest Moon to join the celebrations and learn about their farms. The University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) hosts a directory and event calendar of California agritourism, that is, farms and ranches open to the public for enjoyment and education to help urban and suburban people find these opportunities.

Many families keep the autumn harvest tradition alive by visiting a pumpkin patch to select a pumpkin from the field and trying to navigate a corn maze. Others enjoy apple orchards with picnics, pies and craft fairs. My family has a favorite harvest tradition of our own. My wife and I volunteer every year at the Hoes Down Harvest Festival held the first weekend each October at Full Belly Farm, an organic farm in Guinda, in the Capay Valley of Yolo County. We join hundreds of volunteers who help make Full Belly a temporary home for several thousand festival attendees each year. People of all ages, mostly city and suburban families from the Bay Area and Sacramento area, come out to enjoy rural life on an organic family farm.

This year will be the 25th annual Hoes Down Festival. It is organized by the Ecological Farming Association, a group of organic farmers who have been leaders in developing California organic farming over the last 30 years, and who also put on the EcoFarm Conference in Pacific Grove every January. The festival proceeds benefit local organizations including Future Farmers of America (FFA), the local volunteer fire department, and the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), and also help support the EcoFarm Festival. Full Belly Farm, where the festival is held, is a magical 300 or so acres of some of the best examples of diversified organic farming around, integrating vegetables, fruit and nut crops with poultry, sheep, goats and even a few cows. If you do go to the Hoes Down Festival, be sure to make time for one of the walking tours of the farm led by one of the four farm owners, and learn a bit about hedgerows, crop rotation and how sheep can be part of growing healthy fruits and vegetables.

This two-day celebration (Sunday is a big farm breakfast and longer workshops) has music and other entertainment all day Saturday on several stages (one for children), hay rides around the farm, good food, workshops, nature walks, games, baby animals to pet, a farmers' market, craft fair, dancing, and lots to see and learn. You can watch sheep get sheered, join in a Contra Dance, learn to make herbal tinctures, take a dip in the river and make a dried flower wreath, or just sit back, drink a beer and listen to the music. Children can grind wheat, make a corn-husk doll, learn to spin wool, climb on an exciting hay-bale mountain full of secret passages, listen to stories inside a tipi and much more. You can camp overnight in the walnut orchard after dancing under the stars. The weekend is an immersion in another world - the world of harvest festival.

When: Saturday, October 6 & Sunday, October 7, 2012
Where: Full Belly Farm, County Road 43 Guinda, CA 95637
Admission prices: Adults: $20 each when purchased online; $25 when purchased at the gate, Children (2-12): $5 each anytime! Under 2: Free.
Saturday night camping: $25 per car
More info: http://www.hoesdown.org/

UC ANR's online agritourism directory, www.calagtour.org, lists many chances to celebrate the harvest season with farmers. Here are a few:

• 
  North Yuba Harvest Festival in Oregon House
  The North Yuba Harvest Festival will feature tasting of gold-medal local wines and olive oils, food vendors, live entertainment, arts, crafts, fresh produce, children´s activities and much more. This year it will be a full TWO DAYS of festival fun, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday.
  When: Saturday Sept. 29 & Sunday Sept. 30
  Where: 9185 Marysville Road, Oregon House, CA 95962
  Free entry, with $5 suggested parking donation.
  Wine tasing and souvenir glass $10
  Information: 530-692-2476 or www.alcouffecenter.org or www.northyubagrown.org
  
  
• 
  Sierra Oro Farm Trail Passport Weekend
  From 10 am to 5 pm Saturday and Sunday, travel the scenic agricultural trails of Butte County, sampling local fare including artisan olive oil, grass-fed meats, specialty nuts, award-winning wines and more. This annual agri-tourism adventure showcases 28 participating wineries and specialty farms throughout Butte County and provides trail goers with a once-a-year chance to savor the amazing farm-fresh bounty produced locally.
  When: Saturday October 6 and Sunday October 7, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
  Where: Butte County (Oroville, Chico, Paradise regions)
  Cost & registration: Passports cost $25 per person and include a 2012 map and free commemorative wine glass. Based on availability, Passports will cost $30 per person the day of the event.Click  here to order your 2012 Passports online now.
  For more information, please visit Sierraoro.org, email info@sierraoro.org or call 530-891-5556

• Fall Harvest Festival at the UC Santa Cruz Farm
  Join the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems on the UC Santa Cruz Farm for a full slate of music, food, tours, kids’ activities, cooking demos, gardening workshops, an apple pie baking contest, apple tasting, and much more!
  When: September 30, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
  Where: UC Santa Cruz Farm
  Cost:The festival is free for UCSC students, Friends of the Farm and Garden members, and kids 12 and under; $5 general admission.
  For more information: contact casfs@ucsc.edu, 831.459-3240, or see http://casfs.ucsc.edu. Directions are available on the website.

HoesDown2010river

Apple time!

Remember that snow on the foothills back in May? That cold spell delayed the apple harvest in El Dorado County about 10 days, but the ranches of the Apple Hill Growers Association are now open for visitors. Gravensteins are already ripe and the first crisp and juicy Galas are ready to pick, with Jonagolds close behind. September is the perfect month to visit the ranches, pick your own apples and maybe stop for a glass of wine or a slice of fresh apple pie.

More than 50 Apple Hill Association member ranches welcome the public onto their small foothill farms every fall with fruit stands, U-pick opportunities, wineries, apple pressing, bake shops, and attractions including live music, old-time steam engines, craft fairs, apple-head carving classes and pie-eating contests. The association hosts a website to help visitors find farmstands, where to pick their own fruit or what events are scheduled.

Apple Hill was born of hard times. In the 1960s, pears were the chief source of income for the area. But a disease known as "pear decline" was ravishing the trees. A small group of local farmers met with the UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor and the county agricultural commissioner to discuss how to save the farms. Since most of the farms had a few apple trees on the land, they decided to try inviting people from the Sacramento Valley up the hill to buy some apples and a fresh-baked pie or two as a stop-gap measure until they could figure out a solution. The apple and pie event was instantly successful, the growers formed their association and planted more apple trees, and Sacramento Valley families have made a tradition of the short drive to Apple Hill every fall for the past 50 years.

All over California, apple growers are harvesting now. California is fifth in the United States in apple production, and many of California's growers have organized together to share their harvest season directly with visitors. In San Bernardino County, about 90 minutes from Los Angeles, The Oak Glen Apple Growers Association offers U-pick apples, U-press cider, hayrides, farm animals, tours and history. In Sonoma County, you can check the Sonoma County Farm Trails to find an apple ranch to visit. To find other apple ranches, check the California Apple Commission's site.

When you do pick your own apples at one of the many ranches open to the public, you may be pleasantly surprised to learn that you don't have to climb any ladders. In fact, due to liability concerns, most U-pick operations now make sure that you keep both feet firmly on the ground by planting dwarf varieties of fruit trees for visitors' picking.

Just picked, crisp sweet apples can't be beat for good eating. They are also good for you; an apple a day just might help keep the doctor away. apples are very low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium, and are a good source of dietary fiber and vitamin C.

Apples will keep for three or four months, or even longer if stored properly. When harvesting, do not remove the stems from apples that will be stored. Be sure to store only apples without bruises, insect or disease damage, cracks splits or mechanical injury. Store apples at around 40 degrees F for best results. You may also want to wrap each apple in newspaper to keep them from touching each other.

Apples are also great for cooking. Here's an apple crisp recipe from www.momswhothink.com:

Mama Shirley's Apple Crisp Recipe

Apple Crisp Ingredients :

12 medium Granny Smith & Macintosh apples (6 of each); peeled, cored and sliced
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
1 1/2 cups butter, softened

Apple crisp directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
   
   
2. Place apples in a mixing bowl, sprinkle evenly with vanilla. Toss to combine.
   
   
3. In a large bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal, cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar. Cut butter into mixture until crumbly.
   
   
4. Evenly place coated apple slices into the bottom of a greased 9x13 inch baking dish. Cover apple slices with crumb mixture.
   
   
5. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 to 50 minutes or until apples are tender.

Bellydancing with your blueberries?

How about looking at Saturn through a telescope, picking your own cherries and blueberries, learning from UC Merced scientists how they estimate snow pack and water flow, taking a dip in the river, tasting local olive oil, wine and cheese, painting a picture, petting a lamb, and camping out in the walnut orchard? About 600 people enjoyed all this and more at the Pick and Gather Festival at Riverdance Farm in Merced County June 5 and 6.

Organic farmers Cindy Lashbrook and Bill Thomson, owners of the 70-acre diversified Riverdance Farm, host this annual event the weekend after Memorial Day. Lashbrook and Thomson are among the growing number of small and mid-scale California farmers and ranchers who open their farm gates to the public for enjoyment and education, helping to build community and connection between the 98 percent of Californians who do not work in agriculture and the 2 percent who do.

The Pick and Gather this year was a mellow family-friendly event with bands, folk-singers and belly-dancers entertaining the crowd. Informational booths, staffed by the UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners, the WIC program, Valley Land Alliance, the Merced Farm Bureau and other local groups, were very popular. Local farms offered honey, jams, lemonade, olive oil and other goodies in a shady general store, and there was plenty of room to sit and enjoy lunch prepared by vendors or to eat picnics brought from home. Delicious ripe U-pick organic cherries and blueberries were at wholesale prices. With unemployment in Merced County at about 20 percent this year, Lashbrook and Thomson keep the admission price low and make sure to offer lots of free children’s activities, including art and a petting zoo, and of course, the river to play in.

Riverdance Farm itself, like many farms its size, is having a difficult time staying in business by simply selling crops.The owners would like to see their festival be part of helping sustain the farm financially without losing its friendly community feeling. Most of the visitors were not aware of the costs involved in putting on a festival, from the insurance to the health permit fees to the renting of the water-truck and the porta-potties, not to mention the cost of the farmers’ time away from the work of farming. Lashbrook estimates that it would take another few hundred visitors and maybe some more sponsors and paying vendors to turn the Pick and Gather into an income-generating venture.

The UC Small Farm Program’s agritourism project works to help agritourism operators plan successful and profitable agritourism enterprises on their working farms and ranches, and also to help visitors find festivals and other agritourism activities on working farms and ranches. The Small Farm Program website has a wealth of resources for growers evaluating their own potential for agritourism operations and navigating the risk management, business planning, permitting and promotional aspects of the new businesses.

Agritourism is blossoming in California, with farm tours, classes, farm stays, U-pick operations, farm stands and festivals in almost every county. Potential visitors can find a farm or ranch to visit and check the calendar for events at www.calagtour.org, the University of California’s agritourism directory. Farmers and ranchers are invited to list their agritourism operations and events on the site for no charge.

Riverdance general store

Valley Land Alliance booth

A dip in the Merced River

Blueberry pickers

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