Shone Farm hosted its annual Fall Festival Oct. 8 where attendees picked pumpkins and corn, fed goats, rode hayrides, flinged rotten fruit from a slingshot and tasted student-made wine
Jade Walker is a plant science major and was a ticket-taker at the festival. “I love seeing the different people who come here and the different communities and families. It’s just super sweet,” she said. “We have a large group of people who come here. We have a lot of agricultural people who come here, people with their own farms, families interested in plants and we have a lot of people just traveling around and come across Shone Farm and they come here from super far places.”
Lilly Mitchell and Brianna Verruca were new to Shone Farm’s 365 acres and the festival. “I was surprised how big it was. They have apples and fig trees. This place is beautiful and the amount of flowers and edible things they have around here is great,” Mitchell said.
SRJC students who take classes in the Agriculture and Natural Resources department grow a variety of crops under the sustainable agriculture program. These crops include hemp, grapes and a variety of squashes which anchor the Fall Festival market.
Verruca and Mitchell purchased pumpkins from the “U-Pick” section which allowed visitors to pick their own pumpkins and apples straight off the vines and branches.
Verruca plans to use her pumpkin as Fall decoration. Mitchell said she would hold onto hers either until it rots or she bakes with it.
Shone Farm hosts other events throughout the year including pick-up parties for Shone Farm Wine Club members and Pick and Sip Saturdays on the second Saturday of every month when the farm opens for seasonal produce purchases and wine and olive oil tasting. Buyers can also purchase Shone Farm produce at the farm and at farmers markets in Santa Rosa, Sebastopol and Petaluma.
