Press Release from Healthiest Town Aberfeldy on Summer 2024 activities…
Tours, talks and tastings: food growers open gates to visitors all around Highland
Perthshire’s very first Open Gate Festival.
Food growers are due to open their gates to visitors in August as part of Highland Perthshire’s very first Open Gate Festival.
Organised by Aberfeldy’s Healthiest Town project, the festival aims to encourage people to eat more local, healthy food by showcasing the best of what is being produced in the area.
Dozens of growers and producers have signed up to the 10-day festival – from farms and professional market gardens to foragers and hobbyists – to open their gates to people for tours, talks and tastings.
Running from August 23 to September 1, there will also be workshops on growing mushrooms, foraging and preserving food, a community feast and two film nights. There will be specific workshops and farm visits for schools.
Aberfeldy resident Emma Burtles, who is spearheading getting this event off the ground, said: “Part of Healthiest Town’s campaign is about inspiring people to eat better, real food. We are becoming more aware about how our food choices impact our overall wellbeing and the importance of eating a diet rich in plants.
“In this area we are so lucky to have an abundance of great produce – for instance, one of the specialities at Tombreck Market Garden in Lawers is the flower and herb salads, which contain about eight different plants in each bag, including some many of us wouldn’t necessarily know as edible, such as purslane, calendula and nasturtium.
“Little Trochry Farm, Dunkeld, specialises in growing heritage vegetables from ancient seed types, which give different, wonderful flavours, textures and colours to the usual types found in supermarkets.
“Open Gate is about showing that off, encouraging us to eat more of what we grow here, enticing people with exciting recipes and hopefully even motivate more of us to grow our own or get involved in community food projects.”