Taste King County's bounty at Harvest Celebration Farm Tour

When city kids visit local farms participating in the annual Harvest Celebration Farm Tour, they're immediately drawn to the animals, petting them and skittering as though the cow or goat or sheep were from another planet. In a sense, the animals are from a world alien to them, but not after their time on the tour.

The 10th annual Harvest Celebration Farm Tour, taking place Sept. 27 at 26 farms around King County, is a chance for families to face — indeed, to even pet — their food.

The tour started out small and has — mirroring the growth of area farmers markets — exploded in popularity. Tour numbers have grown from about 2,300 visitors in 2000 to nearly 8,000 last year.

"Ten years ago, when the tours started, visitors were fewer and mostly unaware that farming even occurs in King County," said Erick Haakenson of Jubilee Farm near Carnation.

Today, about 1,550 farmers grow more than 200 types of fruits and vegetables in King County, with nearly 45,000 acres under production.

Farmers see the tour as a way to showcase all of this, along with offering an experience to visitors. Farmers provide hay rides, pumpkin patches and corn mazes, and host live music, chefs' demonstrations, wool carding, cider pressing, scavenger hunts and more. Food is available at many farms, and visitors are encouraged to bring shopping bags and cash to take home farm products.

Farms: a reality check

For many kids, the tour offers a chance to learn how their food goes from the farm to their table.

Bellevue mom Ashley Steel, who's been taking Logan, 6, and Zoey, 9, on the tour for four years, said they began raising chickens after one of the Harvest Tours.

"One day my daughter came in and said very skeptically, 'Mom, where do chicken nuggets come from?' That's when she really figured out what eating meat means."

After that, Zoey wanted to become vegetarian. The farm visit again provided some help. The farm tour "makes (kids) much more likely to try vegetables," Steel said. "They want to like the veggies."

After their first farm tour, the family joined a consumer supported agriculture (CSA) program at Jubilee Farm, receiving weekly boxes filled with produce.

In fact, Steel said she sometimes hears the kids tell their friends, "You should eat Farmer Erick's carrots, because they taste better." They even ate brussels sprouts, a feat so astonishing the family took a picture and gave it to "their" farmer, Jubilee's Haakenson.

Kids are fascinated with farm animals and watching fruit and vegetables grow, Haakenson said.

"But farms are often presented in an unrealistic way in the media and in children's literature," he said. "Bringing children to a farm puts them in touch with reality, and to the 'where and how' they really get their food."

Hands-on learning

On Saturday, Haakenson will load up visitors on his tractor — as is done at many farms during the tour — and will stop to let people touch and pick produce and ask questions. A farm visit is all about opening up the senses and, for kids, trying something new, he said.

At other farms on the tour, kids will learn the "two-handed picking method" to safely harvest their own beans or strawberries — hold the stem with one hand, pinch the produce off with the other — while at still others, they'll get up close and personal with animals.

"They get to meet the animals that produced the milk that made the cheese they're eating," says Julie Steil, owner of River Valley Cheese outside of Fall City. Older children can visit the barn for one-on-one interaction and walk away with a ribbon that says, "I milked a goat."

More awareness

The public awakening to the tour can be charted through the growth of farmers markets in the county, which went from five in 1998 to 34 this year and saw sales of perhaps $2 million grow to between $12 million and $15 million, according to Karen Kinney, agriculture marketing specialist for King County. Interest in healthful eating, food safety and the growing awareness about the value of buying local products "have put the spotlight on local farmers," she said.

Area farms are raising a huge array of animals, in addition to hundreds of varieties of vegetables, fruits and herbs. Sure, there are chickens, cows, horses and goats, but several farms are also raising sheep, ducks, rabbits, pigs, turkeys, donkeys, yak, water buffalo and alpacas, the latter being a member of the camel family that provides sought-after soft wool.

Of all the attractions of the tour, however, many farmers agree that what sticks with kids is getting to know the animals. They're surprised to learn that the animals have personalities, Steil says, and when she sees farm visitors months later at a farmers market, they often remember the animals' names.

The farm tour, Kinney said, enhances the farmers-market experience because it "brings people out so they can see what the farms they've been buying from look like."

Plus, "it's really fun," said Steel, the Bellevue mother. "The kids love it."

Bill Thorness is a freelance garden writer in Seattle: bill@thorness.com.