Albion Hills Community Farm preparing for annual Honey & Garlic Festival

Event will be held on September 14

By ZACHARY ROMAN

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A celebration of delicious, locally-grown garlic and locally-harvested honey will be happening soon. 

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on September 14, the Albion Hills Community Farm (AHCF) will host its annual Honey & Garlic Festival. The farm is located at 16555 Humber Station Road. 

AHCF volunteer Karen Hutchinson said there will be a variety of new honey and garlic-flavoured dishes for sale at the festival this year. By the time the festival is on, dahlia flowers will be in peak season and the AHCF is a great place to view them. 

The festival includes vendors, garden tours, educational opportunities, and of course the opportunity to buy local honey and garlic.

The annual Honey & Garlic Festival started in 2019, then had to be put on hiatus due to the pandemic. In recent years, the festival has been growing bigger and bigger.

Hutchinson said the AHCF is blessed with sandy loam soil, which many things grow well in — garlic just happens to be one of them. 

“We've increased our garlic planting, and this year we harvested almost 20,000 bulbs of garlic,” she said. “We do garlic braids with our softneck garlic, and with most of our hardneck garlic we cut off the scapes and sell it as a bulb.”

Using garlic scapes, the AHCF has made garlic scape relish and garlic scape pesto.

“If you're into the flavour of garlic, our festival is a good place to be.” said Hutchinson.