ASHEVILLE – October brings within the altering of leaves and aid from the summer season warmth. It’s additionally a time of harvesting crops that make hearty meals for cooler days and nights and enliven plates.
This month, have fun the shift of seasons and agricultural bounty by attending harvest festivals in Asheville and throughout Western North Carolina.
The WNC Farmers Market Harvest Pageant can be from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Oct. 14 at 570 Brevard Highway.
The WNC Farmers Market, owned and operated by the North Carolina Division of Agriculture, is open each day and year-round and serves family prospects and wholesale shoppers.
On the pageant, the 36-acre indoor-outdoor market, with a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains, will additional showcase the array of native and regional growers and producers and their seasonal produce and items.
“Our distributors love this occasion to share all of their fall merchandise and regionally made meals merchandise and produce,” mentioned Western Ag Packages spokesperson Ellerslie McCue. “It’s a family-friendly targeted occasion, and it’s a terrific alternative to be exterior and benefit from the stunning issues that fall has to supply right here in Western North Carolina.”
For the second annual occasion, particular festivities are deliberate for a communitywide celebration of the autumn harvest.
Beforehand, the market hosted fall commodity days that highlighted choose commodities in season, McCue mentioned, however the occasion was enhanced to have fun all of what the season has to supply and the growers, makers and distributors on the market surrounded by leisure and actions for the general public.
Available in the market
On common, the WNC Farmers Market hosts 150-200 distributors all year long.
On the Harvest Pageant, visitors can have entry to a large assortment of contemporary late-summer and fall produce and merchandise for retail sale.
Scorching meals and snacks can be bought by distributors and meals vehicles, together with Hit the Pit BBQ, Moose Café and DJ’s Pickles Deli.
Popcorn, cotton sweet, lemonade and different treats can be out there, in addition to regionally sourced sorghum and apples for tasting.
“Henderson County is the seventh largest apple-producing county within the nation. That’s an enormous business for us right here,” McCue mentioned. “In our market outlets, we’ll have tables with six totally different kinds of apples the place folks can come and style and have fun our apple growers this fall.”
Fall vegetation and flowers can be in inventory, too, for these eager to spruce up their properties, workplaces and gardens.
Leisure and actions
The family-friendly occasion can have lots for youthful visitors to get pleasure from from free face portray to actions and video games, like sand tables with mini tractors, tic-tac-toe, cornhole and pumpkin stem toss.
“It’s a terrific occasion for the households to return out and plenty of issues for the children to do and revel in,” McCue mentioned.
An area tractor membership will show its assortment of vintage tractors with a parade by way of the market to start at 4 p.m.
Stay music can be carried out by space musicians taking part in Americana and bluegrass tunes.
WNC Foodworks
Open-air trams can be lined as much as give visitors a tour of the expansive market.
Harvest festivalgoers could tour WNC Foodworks, a brand new, on-site shared-use industrial kitchen, developed by the nonprofit Middle for Agricultural and Meals Entrepreneurship.
Oct. 14 would be the grand opening of the 5,000-square-foot facility that’s been designed as a manufacturing space for meals truck operators, caterers, and producers of retail or wholesale meals and pure merchandise, and different people and small companies within the meals and beverage business.
“This kitchen has the potential to have a huge effect locally and to serve a necessity. What I like about it’s it’s designed to be an incubator and an schooling kitchen,” McCue mentioned.
Within the case of a strawberry grower, they could determine to take their abundance of strawberries to the commissary kitchen and course of it to make jam. WNC Foodworks would lengthen additional help, comparable to coaching the grower on easy methods to use the kitchen tools and join them to an entrepreneurial service, like Mountain Bizworks, to make or fine-tune a marketing strategy.
“There’s quite a lot of hoops and hurdles, particularly if you’re making meals and meals security, and so they’re there to information you thru that and enable you keep away from these blind spots,” McCue mentioned.
The 15-minute excursions of WNC Foodworks can be supplied at 11 a.m., 12 p.m., 1 p.m. and a couple of p.m.
Extra fall festivals to attend
WNC Fall Harvest Days-Vintage Engine & Tractor Present. A two-day occasion of vintage tractors, hit n’ miss engines, crafts, antiques, toys, elements, tractor pull and meals from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Oct. 13-14, WNC Agricultural Middle, Boylston Freeway, Fletcher. $8, free age 12 and youthful. wncagcenter.org/occasions/2023/fall-harvest-days-2023
Burnpile. Burial Beer Co.’s annual beer tasting and music pageant can be from 1-6 p.m. on Oct. 14 at Forestry Camp, 10 Shady Oak Drive, Asheville. Ages 21+. $50-$150.
Carolina CiderFest. North Carolina Cider Affiliation and Shay and Firm will current a cider-tasting pageant celebrating native, regional and nationwide apple growers and makers of onerous cider, mead, apple wine and seltzers. The occasion can be 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Oct. 21 at McCormick Subject, 30 Buchanan Place in Asheville. $45 common admission, $25 for designated drivers, and VIP passes for $75 and $95. carolinaciderfest.com
Eliada House Fall Pageant and Corn Maze. The annual fundraiser for Eliada, a nonprofit that companies kids, youth and households in want. The occasion sequence runs by way of Oct. 29, 3-7 p.m. Fridays, 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday at Eliada House, 2 Compton Drive, Asheville. $12, $30 season move, celebration tent and admission $300. Name 828-772-9734. eliada.org
Hickory Nut Hole Farm. The family-owned and operated farm welcomes households from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. each weekend by way of Nov. 11 at 57 Sugar Hole Highway, Fairview. Hay rides, pony rides, apples, fresh-pressed cider, creekside play space, cornhole, loosen up in hammocks whereas the children go down culvert slides, meals truck, see cattle, pumpkins and gourds on the market. hickorynutgapfarm.com.
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Tiana Kennell is the meals and eating reporter for the Asheville Citizen Instances, a part of the USA Immediately Community. E mail her at tkennell@citizentimes.com or comply with her on Instagram @PrincessOfPage. Please help this sort of journalism with asubscription to the Citizen Instances.
