In 1989, Pat Reppert, AKA
The Goddess of Garlic, a Hudson Valley herb farmer (Shale Hill Farm and Herb Gardens) organized the first Garlic Festival held in the Hudson Valley—and perhaps on the first on the East Coast.
The Hudson Valley Garlic Festival, a celebration in honor of "the stinking rose," has been a
Homegrown String Band fall favorite for the last 4 years. Every year we look forward to the food, music, crafts, and good people we will be enjoying on the last weekend of September in Saugerties, NY. This festival is a real class act; everything about it is top notch, and it's no wonder up to 50,000 garlic lovers from around the country attend each year. The weather was not great this year, but the festival was still very well attended. As usual, we came home with 15 or 20 lbs. of various varieties of organically grown garlic, including some seed garlic that I'll be planting in the next few weeks. If you attend the HVGF you will be able to sample an amazing array of garlic and garlic-flavored products like roasted garlic, garlic ice cream, garlic pretzels, chocolate covered garlic, garlic scape guacamole, garlic salsa, and garlic shots (better than flu shots!), as well as 10 bands performing, everything from bluegrass to zydeco, continuously on 5 stages scattered throughout the park. Be there in 2010, we will!
Garlic Photo by Rick Jackofsky
