Harvest Time in the Valley!

It’s Harvest Time in and around La Conner!  Did you know that over 90 different crops grow in Skagit Valley including barley and hops!? 

Harvest_Hops_La_Conner

Photo by: Nancy Crowell

You can meet your “beer farmer” right here in La Conner at the Hedlin’s Family Farm, drink local beer with organic hops from Hop Skagit, AND attend our very own beer festival – Brew on the Slough!  Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, tulips, daffodils, pickling cucumbers, specialty potatoes, Jonagold apples, green peas, and vegetable seed are some more of the important crops in this maritime valley.  More tulip, iris, and daffodil bulbs are produced here than in any other county in the U.S.  And, ninety-five percent of the red potatoes grown in the state of Washington are from Skagit County. In addition to food and fiber products, agriculture in this region provides habitat for thousands of swans, snow geese, and dabbling ducks.

Skagit County maintains one of the largest and most diverse agricultural communities west of the Cascade mountain range. Agriculture is the No. 1 industry in Skagit County. Local farmers produce about $261 million worth of crops, livestock, and dairy products on 93,000 acres of land.

Giant Pumpkin Festival

Christianson’s Nursery is an official weigh-off site for the Giant Pumpkin Commonwealth (GPC), an international organization, who are sanctioned to submit giant pumpkin world records! The day’s events begin early with entrants registering for the official Weigh-Off. Last year’s pumpkin weighed in at over 1300 pounds!  The Giant Pumpkin Festival is on Saturday, September 21st and includes a hay maze, family carnival games, food trucks, beer garden and pony rides!

The Harvest at Tulip Town

Celebrate the harvest season at Tulip Town with a 9 acre corn maze, hay rides, cider pressing, a petting zoo, a giant slingshot, 5 acre pumpkine patch, fall market and the kid zone!  Free entry for everyone and activity passes are free for kids under 3, $5 for kids 3-11 and $10 for 12 and up.  Festivities for the 21+ crowd will be on October 5th, 12th and 19th with live music and a beer garden hosted by Farmstrong!

the harvest at tulip town

Festival of Family Farms

The 21st Annual Festival of Family Farms will be held this year on October 5th and 6th.  The family farms of Skagit Valley welcome and open their barns and lifestyles to you and your family for this one-of-a-kind event. On this weekend, you can have hands-on-experience learning what it takes to run a farm, from growing crops to feeding animals. It is an opportunity to talk to your farmers and follow your food from the fields to the table. Our participating farms offer fun-filled festival activities for everyone, including:

  • educational exhibits
  • farm tours, harvest markets
  • gardening demonstrations
  • free samples
  • kids activities
  • corn and hay mazes
  • animal exhibits
  • pumpkin patches
  • scenic tours and more

Our farmers are dedicated to producing high-quality products, as well as sustaining our environment, and they look forward to sharing their knowledge and products with you.

Talking Fields

Have you ever wondered what is growing in the farm fields as you drive past? Why farmers plow a certain way? What are all the drainage ditches for? Then Talking Fields is for you. Talking Fields is a self-guided tour that will take you all around the Skagit Delta, from the dike and drainage infrastructure to the farms and farm fields where over $300 million in farmgate value is produced annually.

The Talking Fields tour will help you explore the generational farm history, crop information, unique environmental conditions, and artisan traditions of the Skagit Delta.  Using QR Code technology and your mobile phone, you can follow a detailed map and use GPS driving directions to each of our growing number of Talking Fields sites across the Skagit Delta. As you discover them, simply snap a picture using the QR Code reader on your mobile phone or dial the phone number on the sign to access multimedia content about your surroundings.

“We look forward to this being a community-supported project to provide better information to the community about the dynamic relationship agriculture has to the culture, heritage, and environment of this unique and special place,” said Allen Rozema, Executive Director of Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland.  “It’s also an opportunity to support agri-tourism and tourism in general in the Skagit Valley.”