Our annual Pumpkin Festival will be this Sunday Oct 18th from 11 – 3.
We hope the weather will cooperate with us!
Join us for hotdogs, pumpkin soup, hot cider and coffee, face painting and the haunted house! And of course we have lots of pumpkins to choose from; wee tiny ones and huge ones, orange, blue, and white ones too!
As most people have realized, all of the crops are behind due to the weather we have had. Corn is late as well. We started picking Tuesday. We will have corn at the Farmers market on Wed Aug 26th.
We grow several varieties of corn and each has a different maturity date. The first we generally start with is an early heritage variety that is really nice with a BBQ or to freeze. It has nice sized kernels and a slightly chew texture like the corn you remember from childhood. “Super Sweet” varieties will be maturing in a few weeks.
Due to the seasonal conditions we have cancelled this year’s Corn Festival. We will still host the Pumpkin Festival if everything goes as planned.
A potluck and public screening of the film “Real Dirt on Farmer John”
A movie about a farmer who is about to lose his farm and his community, but who regains them both through Community Supported Agriculture. This is an opportunity to learn about the importance of supporting local agriculture and how local agriculture also supports community development.
Saturday, March 14
Tommy Douglas House on 1122 Saskatchewan Drive, Regina
potluck starts at 5:30pm
movie at 6pm
Bring a dish to share, and your own plates and cutlery or attend the film screening only, as the potluck is optional.
The Regina Eco-Living network (a non-profit receiving government funding) is once again promoting a CSA farm from Hudson Bay SK, although this is by no means the only CSA in the province and is not truly local to Regina as it is outside of the 50km radius legislated by the CFIA.
Keep in mind that buying a CSA subscription is by no means the only way to support local agriculture. Farmers Markets, Farm-Gate sales and CSA are all form of direct marketing where the consumer has an opportunity to interact with the grower and purchase directly from the farm. Farm gate sales allow you to actually go to the farm and see where your food is grown.
Other means of purchasing local products is through marketing cooperatives or making an effort to read the origin labels at the grocery store. If your neighbourhood grocer is not supplying local and regional products ask them why and let them know that it is important to you. There is no reason that we should be importing greenhouse tomatoes from Mexico when there is a plentiful supply grown here in Saskatchewan and nationwide.
The film should be interesting, but the talk afterwards will be a sales pitch. If you are interested in finding a CSA closer to Regina or your region please contact me and I will try to send you in the right direction. Also check out the tab in the top right corner as we are offering a CSA pilot project at Lincoln Gardens.
It seems to me that we just finished the Annual Corn Roast, and already people are calling the farm asking for information about the Pumpkin Festival! Eish…I hope that our customers just have such a great time at these things that they get excited months in advance, and not that they really, really want a free hotdog.
So here is the info that everyone is looking for:
Lincoln Gardens Pumpkin Festival will be held on Sunday October 19th from 11:00 – 2:00. The festival is a Customer appreciation event and is totally free of charge.
There will of course be hotdogs and Wayne’s ‘nearly famous’ pumpkin squash soup. There will also be games for the kiddies & face painting. Children who come in costume will get a halloween treat, so dress up those little ones for the day! The haunted house & strawbale maze will be in full swing and there are all sorts of pumpkins to choose from. Bring your family to take a photo, enjoy a hotdog and some soup, choose your Halloween pumpkin or some beautiful gourds to decorate your home with!
When planning your family’s fall fun outing, don’t forget that the attractions at Lincoln Gardens Pumpkin Patch are always completely free of charge. Lincoln Gardens’ Pumpkin Patch has been a local tradition for over 20 years! Make our Pumpkin Patch part of your family’s fall tradition!
have a look at the Lincoln Gardens official website for the Corn Maiden Market for more information and photos of the Pumpkin Patch.
The town of Lumsden is once again hosting the Scarecrow and Pumpkin Festival. It is fun for all of the residents and visitors to our valley town. Citizens create wacky and imaginative Scarecrows to decorate the town with and then go around to see what their neighbours and friends came up with.
Here is the schedule:
Sept 26th
Scarecrow Judging 9:00 am
Pumpkin Drop off at Park 6:00pm
Pumpkin Judging 6:00pm
Pumpkin Walk 7:00pm
Family & Pumpkin Story Telling 7:30pm
Saturday Sept 27th
Pancake Breakfast 8:30 – 10:00 am
Market 10 – 4:00pm
People Movers 10- 4:00 pm
Bench Collaboration Auction 1:00pm
Entertainment 12 – 4:00pm
Pumpkin Catapult 4:00pm
Of course as the largest growers of pumpkins in our area, we always donate some pumpkins for the Pumpkin Catapult. And this year we will have a Scarecrow themed Haunted House on the farm.
The Pumpkin Patch will be open also, so if you need a pumpkin to carve for the contest you know where to find one!
Have a Happy Fall!
Okay, the question of the week is “when is the corn roast??”
Each year we put on a huge corn roast and hotdog day with the help of a local radio station, CKRM. The Station sends out some staff and an on-air host and the radio show is produced live from our location. We serve hotdogs and corn on the cob and it seems that everyone has a good time.
We have a huge turn-out for our customer appreciation events, and although we know there are a few folks (aka non-customers) who will drive for miles for a free hotdog, our regular customers appreciate the event and look forward to coming on that day.
So mark this day on your calendar:
August 24th from 10:30 – 3:30 (or until we run out of food!)
We have began partnering with local community organizations who come to the event to help serve the food and keep the grounds clean. The food and fun is free but we suggest making a donation towards the groups that come to help so that we can raise some funds for important causes at the same time. This year we are supporting the Inhlase Project, an initiative working with orphans and community workers in Swaziland, Southern Africa.
See you there!
Around the world, it is a paradox that rural, food-producing communities record higher levels of poor nutrition than urban areas. Even as a food crisis looms, those who produce food struggle for
recognition. The SEND Foundation works with rural communities in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia to pursue economic, political and social empowerment for rural men and women.
Tuesday May 27
College Bldg Rm112, U of R Old Campus
Noon to 1:00 pm
$5 (includes Ghanaian lunch)
Mr. Siapha Kamara is CEO of the West African NGO SEND Foundation – a partner of the Canadian Cooperative Association for its projects with rural credit unions and farmer cooperatives. Mr. Kamara is visiting Saskatchewan for an international conference on community economic
development.
Iddisah Seidu is a farmer in Ghana who participates in a Marketing Information Centres project. He says “Before the ECAMIC project came into being, I and my community members were in total darkness. Farmers who should have built houses through their toil of the land were being
cheated by market buyers. When the project started giving us market information, I studied the trend and prices on some selected food crops. Now the community is making profit in the sale of our produce.”
RSVP by May 26 to SCIC at 757-4669
Co-sponsored by Regina Cooperative Council and the U of R Senior’s Education Centre
We have attended some of this conference in the past and it is very interesting.
November 16 – 18
Grand Salon, TCU Place, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan — http://www.organicconnections.ca/
Workshop sessions are centered on four themes, Connecting, Sustainability, Lifestyles and Farming.
“We are building upon our past successes, bringing together all members of the organic sector,” says Debbie Miller, President of the Organic Connections Board of Directors, “and making a concerted effort to expose more people to what organics has to offer.”
I have been sitting in on some of the planning meetings for this event and i think it will be a great opportunity for local producers. Read below:
Sasktourism and other partners are very pleased and excited to present this second provincial gathering of Local Food advocates and are especially pleased to announce the world renowned chef Michael Stadlander will be the keynote speaker for this conference.
The conference will bring together the producers and buyers who have an interest in promoting local food in Regina and area.
Workshops will focus on the benefits available to producers and buyers when dealing directly with each other. Participants will also hear about the challenges faced by others and the lessons they learned from their experiences. There will be networking opportunities to talk one-on-one with other participants about opportunities to establish a supply relationship.
Please put aside June 22nd and join us at the Conexus Arts Center for this exciting opportunity to further your business.
The workshop runs 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and includes lunch. Registration is only $25.00.
Donna Hoffman donna.hoffman@sasktourism.com
Tourism Saskatchewan Phone 306-787-5525
1922 Park Street Fax: 306-787-0715
Regina, SK S4N 7M4
