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UCSC Farm hosts Fall Harvest Festival Sunday, Sept 27

Highlights of 21st annual event include live music, food, apple tasting, apple pie bake-off, garden talks, hay rides, crafts for kids, and tours

September 11, 2015

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kids crafts table
The kids' crafts table is always a well-attended venue at the annual Harvest Festival at the UC Santa Cruz Farm, held this year as part of 50th year festivities.

Celebrate fall’s arrival with pumpkins, music, great food, a fall plant sale, farm tours, and much more at the UC Santa Cruz Farm & Garden’s Fall Harvest Festival, Sunday, September 27, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at campus's 30-acre organic farm.

The festival features live music from bluegrass to reggae, including headliner performances by Bean Creek and Ancestree Reggae. Also on tap: hay rides, kids’ crafts, workshops, pumpkin and produce sales, and campus and community group information tables.

Visitors of all ages are invited to sample apples, enter the pie baking contest, try their hand at pressing cider, scale the climbing wall, and enjoy locally sourced, tasty treats. For the first time the festival will also feature a plant sale with organically raised plants for your fall garden, along with organic pumpkins and other fall produce grown at the UCSC Farm & Garden.

Workshops on making salsa, growing and making cut flower bouquets, saving seeds, and preparing your garden for fall and winter are also on the schedule, along with tours of the farm and an herb talk and walk through the garden.

Want so see how your favorite apple pie recipe measures up? Be sure to enter the Apple Pie Contest by 12:30 pm (see rules, below).

Admission is free for UCSC students, kids 12 and under, and members of the Friends of the UCSC Farm & Garden; general admission is $5. See below for a full schedule of the day's events.

The Harvest Festival is cosponsored by the UCSC Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS), UCSC’s Measure 43, and the Friends of the UCSC Farm & Garden, with major support from Driscoll’s. The Sierra Club will provide free valet parking for bicycles. The UCSC’s OPERS program and College 8 are also supporting this year’s event.

For directions to the UCSC Farm, visit the CASFS web site at http://casfs.ucsc.edu/about/directions. Free parking will be available at the Campus Facilities and Barn Theater parking lots, and a free shuttle will be available. For more information call (831) 459-3240 or email casfs@ucsc.edu.

2015 Harvest Festival Schedule

Music, Main Stage

Ben Davis, acoustic guitar 11:15 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
The CASFS Farm & Garden Band 12:45 – 2 p.m.
Bean Creek 2:15 – 3:30 p.m.
Ancestree Reggea 3:45- 5 p.m.

Workshops and activities

Farm & Garden Plant Sale

 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Apple variety tasting
 11:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Preparing the Fall/Winter Garden, Trish Hildinger/Trish’s Garden
 Noon 1p.m.
Apple Pie Contest Bake-Off (entry deadline)
 12:30 p.m.
Tours of the UCSC Farm – Farm & Garden docents 12:30 p.m. and 4 p.m.
Salsa it Up! Salsa Making Demo & Tasting - Alyssa Billys, Food Systems Working Group 1:15 p.m. and 2:15 p.m.
Herb Talk & Walk through the Garden – Darren Huckle, Western/Chinese herbalist & licensed acupuncturist 1:30-2:30 p.m.

Growing and Making Cut Flower Bouquets - Eliza Milio, UCSC Farm

 2:30 – 3:30 p.m.

Seed Saving Workshop - Demeter Seed Library

 3:45 – 4:45 p.m.

Official Rules for the Friends of the UCSC Farm & Garden Apple Pie Contest

Pie entries accepted September 27, 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Official judging begins at 12:45 p.m.
Winners will be announced at between 2 and 3 p.m.

  1. The Friends of Farm and Garden Apple Pie Bake-Off is a nonprofessional baking competition open to Harvest Festival attendees. (Entry to the Harvest Festival is $5; free admission for UCSC students, Friends of the Farm & Garden members and for children 12 and under).
  2. Contestants are responsible for submitting a written (preferably typed) recipe with their pie.
  3. Contestants are responsible for supplying all ingredients and baking the pie prior to bringing it to the contest.
  4. All entries in this contest must be homemade.
  5. A representative of the Friends of the Farm and Garden will assign each contestant a number. Contestants should verify the number on the bottom of their container is the same number assigned by the representative.
  6. Contestants' entries are judged on taste, presentation, and creativity.
  7. The decision of the judges shall be final. Pie not used during judging will be returned to the contestant.

All pies must be entered by 12:30 p.m. Sunday, September 27, at the Fall Harvest Festival, UCSC Farm. For questions or additional copies of the rules, call (831) 459-3240 or e-mail casfs@ucsc.edu.