Fifth annual Glastonbury Harvest Show at the Town Hall on 17th September 2011

The fifth annual Glastonbury Harvest Show which was held at Glastonbury Town Hall on Saturday 17th September was hailed as an outstanding success with hundreds of people through the door and a wide array of fruit and vegetables on display.

The Harvest Show which is supported by Glastonbury Town Council, Glastonbury Gardeners' Group, Transition Glastonbury, Mendip Community Credit Union, Flaxdrayton Farm and Torganics (which is based at nearby Paddington Farm), is a celebration of local food and as well as allowing people to submit their produce in a wide range of competitive classes including fruit, vegetables, flowers, baked products using local flour, preserves as well as categories aimed specifically at encouraging younger growers in which one exhibit of a UFO over the Tor was brilliant.    Exhibits were judged on taste, smell, colour, freshness and visual appeal, although of course the latter did not mean supermarket quality perfection.   Aside from this there was a chance to visit stalls from local organisations and businesses; listen to an illustrated talk by local permaculture expert Patrick Whitefield; learn about food production and bee keeping; get tips from a gardening expert; participate in bread making workshops, and even the chance to taste varieties of tomatoes with the Glastonbury Gardeners' Group.

Members of Glastonbury Country Market (which has incidentally just celebrated its 10th anniversary) were on hand to provide refreshments all day, while local businesses displaying their wares included the Eco-friendly Shop, Earthfare and Glastonbury Abbey with their award winning cider.

At 1.30pm there was an awards ceremony for winners, with rosettes supplied by Glastonbury Spring Water Company and prizes donated by B & Q, Eco-friendly Shop, Morrisons Supermarket, Oaklands Nursery, Patrick Whitefield,  Sweet Acre Nursery and Tor Pet Supplies.  Prizes were awarded for best preserve, best harvest box, best floral display and best young person's entry, while the best in show award for the most points accumulated across all categories went to Ellyn Sargente.

An auction of produce took place at the end of the day with money raised in the auction going towards funding for the 2012 show.

One of the organisers, Caroline Lewis of Glastonbury Gardeners' Group, said to me after the show "People have really got behind the show making this our best ever year; the number of entries is the greatest we've ever had, and in fact if we had many more there would be no room to display them all!"

For more pictures of the event, check out our galleries here and here.