Hawthorne Valley's Harvest Festival Adds a Creature Parade and a New Biodiversity Trail Walk

Saturday, October 10, 11am–3pm | Ghent, NY | Free (rain or shine)

The Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School and farm is having a busy start to fall. On the Heels of announcing it's purchase of Otto's Market in Germantown it is preparing to hold its Harvest Festival on October 10. It's a free autumn celebration of farming, ecology, education, art, and community that has run for more than 25 years at the farm and school campus at 327 County Route 21C.

Returning favorite activities include the marionette show "Journey Across the Sea" by The Magical Puppet Tree, children's crafts, horse rides, cider pressing, hay rides, an artisan vendor market, food, and a pie baking contest. Live music performances will feature Luke & George Franco, Niall Connolly, The Berglomi Trip, and the Bernstein Bard Quartet. Food comes from the Hawthorne Valley Farm Store, Hudson Meal Co, The Hungry Traveler, Elevated Gatherings Food Truck, and Supreme Soft Serve. The pie contest entry form and full schedule are on the Hawthorne Valley website.

This year's focus is on the farm's wildlife. At 11am, Anna and Josie lead a guided walk on the new Creekhouse Loop of the Biodiversity Trail, which circles the Creekhouse native plant gardens, a nursery, and a phenology trail. The walk starts at the Farmscape Ecology Program tent, with no reservations needed. The Farmscape Ecology Program, a small research group at Hawthorne Valley, helped design the trail. A 2022 survey by the program documented nearly 600 species of wild plants, about 100 species of birds, close to 100 butterfly species, and more than 250 moth species living within the working farm. The Creekhouse garden, which the program started building in 2010 on a vacant mown lawn now hosts more than 100 species of plants, insects, birds, and other animals.

At 1pm, a Creature Parade follows. A Siena University environmental ethics class has been working with the Farmscape Ecology Program to make creature masks and students will speak on behalf of the organisms of the Biodiversity Trail. Everyone is invited to join, and you can bring your own mask or costume or make one at the Siena tent.

Hawthorne Valley is a 900-acre biodynamic farm, a K–12 Waldorf school, and a research and education center, organized as a nonprofit since 1972.

Hawthorne Valley, 327 County Route 21C, Ghent, NY. Full schedule, vendor list, and pie contest form at hawthornevalley.org/harvest-festival.