Southlanders celebrated everything from giant carrots to heritage fruit and community connection at the Harvest Festival last weekend.
Festival co-organiser Nick Kiddey said the festival, now in its 20th year, was a popular event which had continued to attract strong community support.
Despite rising travel costs affecting attendance for some, numbers remained steady, with visitors travelling from across Southland and from as far as Dunedin and Queenstown.
The festival continued its strong family focus, offering dedicated children’s workshops and activities so parents could attend sessions knowing their children were also engaged.
“It’s very much a community effort,” Mr Kiddey said.
“We rely on volunteers, local businesses and organisations, and support from Community Trust South to make it happen.”
The aroma of fresh coffee, alongside pork and apple sausages, as well as venison and plum sausages sizzling on the barbecue, wafted across the site.
A plethora of workshops, ranging from sourdough pizza-making and food preservation to fruit-tree pruning, seed saving and candle making, were on offer.
Guest organisations also featured. The Southland Bee Society offered an introduction to beekeeping, while Charlie from the Southland Multicultural Trust taught festival-goers how to make Chinese dumplings.
Mr Kiddey said the competitions were again a highlight. Entries included harvest baskets, flower displays, fruit pies and standout individual vegetables.
The annual festival was fortunate to be given $3000 worth of fruit trees from Waimea Nurseries, which were distributed to prize winners across different categories, including the famous fruit pies category and the home-grown vegetables category.
Among the standout entries was a giant carrot, grown by students taught by Thornbury School teacher aide Lorraine Knoll.
She said the carrot seed was planted in a raised garden bed in spring last year.
Apart from regular watering, weeding and the addition of blood and bone to the soil, little else had been done to produce the oversized carrot.
“We believe it’s a rogue seed,” Ms Knoll said.
Mr Kiddey said the giant carrot highlighted the purpose of the Harvest Festival competitions — encouraging people to showcase what they had grown, whether it was a full harvest basket or a single exceptional specimen.
The oversized vegetable was a good example of the standout produce Southland growers were cultivating at home, he said.
- Toni McDonald
