WARDSBORO — Who will win the Ugliest Turnip Award? Head on over to the annual Gilfeather Turnip Festival to find out!
The 11th annual festival and contest, the signature fundraising event for the Friends of the Wardsboro Library, honors the root vegetable that was discovered and/or cultivated by Wardsboro farmer John Gilfeather.
According to the website of Fedco Seeds, Gilfeather, who died in 1944, “sold them by the cartload” in Brattleboro and in Northampton, Mass., in the early 1900s.
“Gilfeather, a lanky secretive bachelor, is said to have cut the tops and bottoms off his turnips, so that no one else could propagate them,” the catalog says. “Nevertheless, some seeds escaped to a neighbor who gave them to market growers William and Mary Lou Schmidt, who salvaged, multiplied and commercialized them.”
The seed company also points out that the Gilfeather turnip is really a rutabaga.
This year's festival will feature celebrity judge Charlie Nardozzi, a nationally recognized garden writer, speaker, radio, and television personality. Nardozzi co-hosts the television program “In The Garden” on WCAX, a weekly, call-in radio show on WJOY in Burlington, and the Vermont Garden Journal on Vermont Public Radio.
The contest is free to enter, and entries may be delivered until noon on festival day.
The festival will also offer turnip gifts, a commemorative Gilfeather T-shirt, DVDs of the documentary The Gilfeather Turnip: Rooted in Wardsboro, produced by Theresa Maggio, and the Gilfeather Turnip Cookbook.
Visitors can learn the words to the Gilfeather Turnip Song with composer and local musician Jimmy Knapp. Come to the Turnip Café for the turnip tastings, where local cooks show off their best turnip recipes.
The event also features live music, strolling musicians, a farmers' market, craft tables.
And, of course, turnips (on the Friends' Turnip Cart) and seeds and seedlings at the Friends' Plant Sale.
The festival seeks volunteers to put up posters, help serve food, donate a baked good, serve as a greeter, and offer help with the contest, with selling turnips, with staffing the sale tables, and with cooking for the cafe.
The festival takes place Saturday, Oct. 26 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Wardsboro Town Hall and The Big Tent on Main Street.
The free event offers ample parking and will take place rain or shine.
For further information, visit friendsofwardsborolibrary.org or call 802-896-3416.