Yesterday PJ and I took the MG out for a spin and went out east to a Garlic Festival at The Garden of Eve Organic Farm. The traffic on Sound Ave was horrendous! We said to each other that this better be a good festival or we'd be a little upset. We're a little spoiled in having enjoyed the Garlic/Harvest Festival in Bethlehem, CT and the garlic Festival in Saugerties, NY for the last few years. The parking lots were mobbed but we found a spot.
There was a $3 admission. When you first walked in there was a bunch of pumpkins in a roped off area. These were for sale but no one was even looking at them.

There were about 15 vendors in the whole place! THAT'S IT! The JD Gourmet Balsamic Vinegars (the BEST in my opinion and we always buy a bottle in CT) http://www.jdgourmet.com/ and Sweet Melissa's Dips let you sample their products and maybe one or two more. There were 2 people selling Garlic Soup for $3 and $5 a cup but there were no samples to see if you'd even like it or not. To us, part of the fun of a festival is sampling the food! So the people selling pickles, jams and honey hardly got any business from what we could see. At the other festivals, EVERYONE has samples, even the people selling just garlic. They let you taste it before you purchase the bulbs. There were 2 vendors selling Garlic bulbs. How can they call this a Garlic Festival I'd like to know!!! There was hardly any garlic in sight and no smell of garlic!!
We walked around the rest of the property and both of us commented what a mess the ground was... not with litter but HUGE holes, rocks etc... It was a law suit waiting to happen. That was it, we were out of there. It was a waste of our time. We did buy the Balsamic Vinegar though. It's soooo good... like no other!
We decided to drive a bit more east to see if we could find a farm stand with fresh veggies but a good price. We ended getting off Sound Ave because there was just too much traffic. We went down to RT 25 and started heading west. We ended up stopping at Schmitts Farm. They had beautiful sunflowers.


Inside, they had lots of vegetables, pies and fresh breads. Years ago you could get local produce for pretty good prices. These looked no different than what was in the grocery stores and yet double the price! We laughed when we saw the loaves of Banana Bread. They were $12 a LOAF! UNBELIEVABLE! When we go up to Ithaca, every Jan there's a fair at the local Lions Club. We've hit it 3 years in a row now and the ladies actually now bake extra bread just in case we show up. The first year I bought 2 loaves and PJ came up to me when I was in a different row and showed me that he bought 3! Last year we bought everyone that they had! They are $1 per loaf and the same size as Schmitts $12 loaves! We always freeze them when we get home.
The one thing that I thought was a good price was their Mums. They were large plants in 8" pots and they were 4/$20.

This was just sitting amongst the gourds!
All in all we had a nice day, even though we were disappointed in the festival. We came home, made a nice dinner and had a bottle of wine. A great way to end the day!