ORANGE — Thousands came to the Quabbin this weekend to see garlic planting and cooking demonstrations and get some lessons on environmental sustainability.
The Garlic and Arts Festival, which ran both Saturday and Sunday, draws about 10,000 people over the course of the weekend. The event combines food, games, performances, craft vendors and, of course, garlic-themed items all with an environmental overtone.
Lou Leelyn, one of the festival’s organizers, said while it’s hard to sum up the entire weekend’s worth of events, demos and activities, many have to do with environmental practices or stimulating the local economies of Franklin County.
Ricky Baruch, co-owner of Seeds of Solidarity, was selling about 12 types of garlic and doing demonstrations on best practices for growing garlic sustainably.
He’s also an organizer at the festival and said people had their doubts 19 years ago, when it was started. Many said something with an environmental focus couldn’t work in the Quabbin.
“The Garlic and Arts brings a really diverse group of people together,” he said.
He said he’s seen the Orange community struggle with the loss of manufacturing jobs, and while events like the festival can’t replace jobs, they can showcase those craftsmen and women who live and work in the area.
“People are growing things and making things,” he said.
The event offers ways to learn more about climate action, and resources for being more sustainable. In the “portal to the future,” eventgoers can browse electric cars and bikes, look at solar panels for their homes or listen to demonstrations, such as how to build your own chicken coop.
Lisa Trimby and her mother Maureen, from Oakham, came to the festival to purchase several varieties of garlic, which Maureen grows. The two said they decided to try the garlic ice cream while they were there.
This year, the festival installed a globe where members of the public could write messages about what they want from a future of environmental action. That installation is called Climate Action for All.
Organizers will be recycling the urine from those who entered specific “urine only” porta potties. It will then be used as compost.
A large-scale “urine diversion project” will be set up in collaboration with the Rich Earth Institute of Brattleboro, Vt. What’s expected to be 1,000 to 1,200 gallons of urine will go directly on Dorothy Forster’s hayfields, where the festival was held.
The weekend’s effort may have been “the largest known event to divert and collect urine from thousands of festival attendees through specially retrofitted port-a-potties,” according to festival originator Deborah Habib of Seeds of Solidarity Farm, who hopes it will be “a model of truly local, organic fertilizer and environmental sustainability.”
The festival was held at Forster’s Farm, 60 Chestnut Hill Road.
Reach Miranda Davis at 413-772-0261, ext. 280 or mdavis@recorder.com.