PRESS RELEASE: Common Roots Urban Farm celebrates the season with the Harvest Hootenanny and Pumpkin Smash

Kjipuktuk/Halifax - On Saturday, Nov. 1 from 12 to 3 p.m., Common Roots Urban Farm (CRUF) is excited to welcome visitors to the BiHi Park farm for its much-loved annual Harvest Hootenanny & Pumpkin Smash celebration (rain date Nov. 2). Since the farm’s very first season in 2012, gardeners, neighbours and community members have gathered on the first Saturday after Halloween to celebrate the harvest with some good old-fashioned fall fun — and a little compost.

“This is a celebration of our community,” says Nicola Nemy, coordinator at the BiHi farm. “We’ll have everything from live music to great local vegetarian food to fun activities for all ages – including the event’s most popular tradition, the jack-o-lantern smash.”  

This Saturday’s event will take place at the BiHi Park Community Farm site on Bayers Road. The celebration draws hundreds each year for local music, garlic planting, cider pressing, a seed swap, activities for kids, garlic raffle and free coffee, cookies and a vegetarian buffet-style meal at 1 p.m. For the pumpkin smash, visitors are invited to bring their jack-o-lanterns and smash them (using rubber mallets or gravity) before they’re added to the farm compost pile.

Visitors will also be able to tour the farm’s new solar-powered walk-in cooler, designed and built in partnership with OSO Planning + Design to help the farm store produce, reduce food waste and extend the growing season. As CRUF is an off-grid urban farm, storing produce for donations or use in programming has long posed a challenge. The new building, powered by a Canadian solar generator and custom cooling system, will help CRUF improve local food access while demonstrating the feasibility of low-carbon food storage.

“The hope is that we can connect this season’s harvest, the compost and the next season’s produce, recognizing the circle that creates,” says Nemy. “People can return to the farm next season and see the vegetables growing in the compost made from their pumpkins.”

The event is free, family friendly and open to all. As Nemy puts it, “There’s no better way to celebrate the end of a season than sharing a meal with a few hundred neighbours and friends.”  

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