Customers shop for fruit trees grafted from heirloom varieties and drought-tolerant native trees, shrubs and grasses with edible fruit, berries and seeds at Gabriel Feldman’s Honeyhawk Farm last year at the Mimbres Valley Harvest Festival. Feldman will return to the festival with his heirloom and native trees as well as the three top producing varieties of strawberries according to NMSU trials. This year’s festival will take place on Saturday, September 28 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the San Lorenzo Elementary School and includes a large farmers market, three local bands, great food, a health fair, lots of arts and crafts, organized children’s activities and a Solar Cook-off, Hemp talk by author Doug Fine, a Horseshoe Tournament and Best Pie in the Mimbres Pie Contest. Find out how to cook with the sun at the Solar Cook-off at the 14th Annual Mimbres Valley Harvest Festival. Solar chefs are invited to bring their solar ovens to show off their solar cooking skills. Registration starts at 10 a.m. with judging/prizes at 1 p.m. On-going solar cooking demonstrations all day with solar cookbooks for sale and free handout on how to get started
Enter Best Pie in the Mimbres Contest with gorgeous ceramics by local potter Kate Brown for first, second and third place winners. Bring pies to the Pie Tent before 10 a.m.
Sign up for the Horseshoe tournament by contacting R.J. Nelson at rjriverrock@gmail.com or from 10 a.m. on festival day. Gift certificate prizes from Grant County merchants.
Bring a cooler and blue ice to shop at the large farmers market with this year’s harvest of fresh raspberries, just-picked produce and frozen USDA certified range-fed beef. Pick up some pumpkins, winter squash, pears, pomegranates and figs, vine-ripened cantaloupes and tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and okra. Stock up on green chiles, jalapenos and serranos as well as sweet peppers, onions, pinto beans, walnuts and pecans. Pick up raspberry jams or apple or pear butter or pickles galore. Also three top-producing NMSU varieties of strawberry plants, indoor and outdoor cactus and grafted-from-local-heirloom apple, plum, apricot and cherry fruit trees.
Industrial hemp can’t get you high but yields premium food (hemp seeds), fiber (rope, paper, cloth, plastics, insulation, hemp-crete, bio-diesel)and medicine (CBD oil.). Author of “Hempbound” Doug Fine will give a half hour talk at 11 a.m. about lessons he’s learned from five years of planting and marketing farm-to-table hemp all over the country. He’ll discuss genetics, cultivation, harvest and marketing options for independent farmers. Q & A and book signing to follow. Lots of handouts with information about hemp for growers and the general public.
“Keeping Bees on the Mimbres” talk by two local beekeepers at 2 p.m.
Relax in the giant music tent and listen to Rivers Bend Band (gospel and folk) at 11:15 a.m., Brandon Perrault from 12:15 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. playing Tex-Mex, country cool, soft rock and jazz. Jammin’Jeff Cerwinske, guitar virtuoso with classic blues from 1:45 to 3:15 p.m.
This family-friendly event takes place at the exemplary San Lorenzo Elementary School (2655 Hwy 35) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is a major fundraiser for the school with red enchilada plates served in the cafeteria. Also fry bread and fixings, Filipino food, eclectic healthy, green chile burgers and baked goodies. Arts and crafts include ceramics, gourd art, mosaics and glass, game boards, specialty kitchen ware, jewelry, knitting and crochet. Also includes a health fair in the school, organized children’s activities, Freisian horses, a local falconer with his hawk and a raffle. For more information go to www.mimbresharvestfest.com. Parking at the Methodist Church and Roundup Lodge with Corre Caminos shuttle between parking and festival.