Please join us for our 4th annual Harvest Fair and Pumpkin Patch this Saturday! This is the one day a year that we go all out to make a fun and educational farm experience for kids and adults alike. This hot weather is supposed to clear out, bringing us some cool fall weather just right for picking pumpkins. This event is open to everybody so tell your friends to come out too! Entrance fee is $10/adult, $5/child, 3 and under free. All proceeds go to Linscott Charter School in Watsonville. In return, dozens of Linscott staff, parents, and students volunteer their time to make the event a success.
Activities will be ongoing throughout the day—you can show up anytime and pick pumpkins, partake of gourmet fair food, help crank and taste som
e fresh apple cider, take a hay ride—here’s the line-up.
- Pumpkin Patch–venture out into the pumpkin patch and cut your pumpkins right off the vine for your fall holiday needs.
- Tractor-pulled hayrides around the farm – Farmer Steve will take you on a fun and educational tour up and down the hills around the fields and past the apple orchard and blueberry patch, with nice views of the slough and the mountains. Ongoing rides start about 10 minutes after the previous ride gets back; unless Steve takes a break for lunch!
- Petting zoo– these adorable small goats, ducks, and bunnies should satisfy the basic need children have to find (and pet) animals on a farm. You can also visit our growing herd of goats and cows in the restoration area.
- Horse rides—Take a horse ride next to the pumpkin patch. No little pony this year, but the horses are tame and friendly.
- Face Painting– kids can have their faces painted by our 2 wonderful face painters
Farm Arts and Crafts– come ready to create! Kids can make corn husk dolls, paint faces on eggshells and take them home to grow green “hair,” create works of art with beans and glue, sculpt with natural clay dug from the soil 2 feet below them, make leaf art, and stuff scarecrows.- Mini-Farmers Market– High Ground Organics vegetables and fruits for sale—load up on tomatoes, strawberries, beans, greens, and other fresh organic veggies.
Harvest Festival Food–Not your average fair food. We’ll have all natural hot dogs, which you can top with Chef Andrew Cohen’s fennel quickles (or some organic ketchup and mustard for the less adventurous). Plus, Andrew has planned some gourmet harvest dishes from High Ground produce to go with your hot dogs or to stand alone as a vegetarian lunch. The menu includes potato salad with fennel and onions, cabbage salad with a Japanese style vinaigrette, beet salad with shredded kale in an orange basil dressing, and marinated veggie kabobs on the grill with a lemon yogurt dipping sauce. All food is available for purchase. For dessert or snacks, don’t miss the chocolate dipped strawberries. Wash it all down with fresh strawberry lemonade or a cup of fresh pressed apple cider.
Music – Bluegrass with the Microtonic Harmonics in the morning and solo vocalist Brett Fowler in the afternoon will keep you in a festive mood- Beekeeping demonstration—local beekeeper Keith Kimes will bring a demonstration hive and answer your questions about bees. Did you know that honey from different types of pollen can taste really different? We hope to have some different honey for you to taste side by side.
- Raffle– Linscott volunteers will be selling raffle tickets for the Drive for Schools raffle, which cost $5 each. There are over 100 prizes, with the grand prize being a new Toyota Prius, Subaru Outback, or $25,000 cash. 100% of the raffle money goes to Linscott Charter School.
Why Linscott? I have to say a few words about the fundraising aspect of this festival. We donate every bit of what we earn from this festival to Linscott Charter School to help them maintain their arts, music, gardening, and field trip curriculum in these times of constant budget shortfalls. For the past 10 years Steve and I have been fortunate to be able to send our children to 
this unique and wonderful small public charter school in Watsonville. Linscott was founded in 1986 by parents who wanted to continue the model of education they had experienced in the Watsonville Cooperative Preschool (which our children also were lucky enough to attend). There are many things I love about Linscott, but one is the commitment to environmental education. Linscott has an active school gardening program, and a serious commitment to reducing and recycling, in which the kids separate waste into m
ultiple categories, including pig food for a local farmer. A few years ago, Linscott swore off the district lunches, and instead has contracted with Revolution Foods to provide school lunches that use all natural often organic and local ingredients. The commitment to educating kids about food extends to offering cooking classes by Chef Andrew Cohen (another Linscott parent) once the kids reach middle school. Linscott kids go on more field trips (getting out into the community and into nature) than any school I’ve ever heard of, helping shape their view of themselves as an integral part of their community and environment.
The best thing about holding this Harvest Festival in collaboration with Linscott, though, is that it makes the Harvest Festival so much better! We get the combined effort and expertise of dozens of Linscott teachers, parents, and students, who will all be hard at work on Saturday cooking, running craft tables, lending animals for petting, directing parking, and all the behind the scenes work that makes for a successful day.
We are located at 521 Harkins Slough Road in Watsonville. Find directions here. We can’t wait to see you!
P.S. see a video of last year’s event! And 2010’s event!
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