Harwich Farmers Pleased With Response To Farm Fest

by William F. Galvin

            HARWICH -- By all accounts Harwich Farm Fest is much like a squash left on the vine. It continues to grow.

            The third annual event ended Sunday with a farmer’s market at Brooks Park. Of the several farmers there called the five-day celebration of the agricultural community a great success.

            “It’s been a very good week,” cranberry grower John Sennott, chairman of the town’s agricultural commission, said Sunday afternoon. “It was bigger and better this year.”

            That was the assessment of several of the participating farm owners. Several reported as many a 100 people in attendance at the various events throughout the week.

            Donna Eaton of Cedar Spring Herb Farm off Long Pond Drive said she averaged about 100 visitors a day throughout the week. Scheduled events at the farm were very popular, she said, citing 45 people crowding into her kitchen for a session on cooking with herbs.

            On Friday, beekeeper Jim Coelho drew a crowd at the farm when he donned his gear and gave a hands-on lecture about the importance of bees to farming. Coelho also demonstrated the crafty exercise of obtaining honey from his hives, entertaining such questions as, “Do the bees get to know you?”

            Coelho pointed out a bee has a six-week life cycle, and if he has not visited the hive in that period it is not likely those bees know him when he comes to harvest the honey. But through the history of mankind honey has been harvested from bee hives, but it is only in the past couple of hundred years ways that have been devised to do so without first killing the creatures, he said.

Eaton said these bees are important to the production of food on the farm. She said before Coelho brought his bee hives to her farm a year ago production was down 50 percent because of the lack of cross-pollination.  About 30 people gathered around on Friday as Coelho demonstrated how to remove the honey from the hives.

Cranberry grower Wayne Coulson said 60 people attended a session at his bogs off Main Street in North Harwich on Saturday.

“It’s always interesting how little people know about agriculture on the Cape,” Coulson said. “But they ask interesting questions.”

Coulson said there was interest in both wet and dry picking of berries, how they sell them and where they go for processing. The cranberry grower said there were about 60 people at the farm on Saturday, a combination of Cape residents and tourists.

Leo Cakounes of Cape Farm Supply and Cranberry Company, also located along Main Street in North Harwich, said he had 60 to 70 people visit on Thursday and he broke them down to three separate tours, which included a visit to his animal pens and a glimpse into the larger cranberry bog tour he runs with his family at the farm.

Cakounes said there were a lot of questions about the history of cranberries and people had good questions about agriculture issues facing the community.

Brent Hemeon of Hemeon’s Farm off Bank Street said he had a good crowd of people this year when he provided a tour of his gardens and orchards. Hemeon talked about growing vegetables, apples and hydrangeas.

“People were inquisitive and I was very impressed,” Hemeon said. “When I gave my lecture on apples people were most interested in how things work.”

The Bank Street farmer said a number of people came to his farm stand during the week, but he was quite impressed with the interest in the farmer’s market. Hemeon said he was waiting for a moment so he could break away and go back to the farm for more produce.

“I’m surprised with this farmer’s market,” Hemeon said while bagging apples in Brooks Park on Sunday. “I’m going to run out of stuff.”       

             Sennott said they didn’t push the farmer’s market much the first year, but he added he can see how it would take off. He said the agricultural community needs a bigger piece of land from which to operate. His commission has been pushing for conservation land at the corner of Oak Street and Queen Anne Road.

            “People are into organic vegetables,” Sennott said of the interest at the farmer’s market.

            Sennott said he had 60 people at a tour of his cranberry bogs on Tuesday, adding that working with the chamber of commerce on Harwich Farm Fest helped with its visibility. He said Hy-Tide Farm on Depot Street also report 100 people at its tour.

            “Honestly, I do think people are coming to Harwich and staying here because of Farm Fest,” Sennott said, citing visitors from Wisconsin and New York who had spoken to him about the festival.

8/28/08