The free, family-friendly event celebrates the season’s harvest while highlighting the importance of self-reliance, emergency preparedness, local food, service, and community connection.

Now in its fifth year, the Community Garden and Harvest Festival continues to grow, creating opportunities for residents to learn practical skills, connect with local resources, enjoy the harvest, and lend a helping hand to neighbors in need.

“This is about much more than gathering a harvest,” says event organizer and founder Russ Olsen. “It’s about bringing our community together and building the skills, relationships, and resources that help our valley become stronger and more self-reliant. Community Unity is what this event is all about.”

A Harvest Worth Celebrating

One of the biggest highlights of the weekend will be the annual potato harvest, where volunteers can get their hands in the dirt and help gather potatoes for local food banks and other community organizations serving people in need. Volunteers can also earn potatoes for their own families, making the harvest a little bit like an Easter egg hunt, only with potatoes!

Children will have the opportunity to participate in the fun as well, including contests and prizes for those who discover the largest potatoes.

Throughout the weekend, attendees can enjoy:

• Free admission
• Potato harvesting and volunteer opportunities
• Contests and prizes
• Children’s activities
• Entertainment
• Information about self-reliance and emergency preparedness
• Local farmers’ market vendors
• Locally grown produce
• Local honey for purchase
• Food vendors featuring pizza and hamburgers
• Opportunities to purchase locally raised meat
• Opportunities to connect with organizations and vendors focused on
  self-reliance and preparedness

Local Food and Self-Reliance

The festival will bring together vendors and community organizations whose work supports self-reliance and emergency preparedness, giving attendees an opportunity to discover resources and practical information they can use at home.

Local gardeners will also be invited to bring their own produce to sell at the festival’s farmers’ market, helping connect neighbors directly with locally grown food.

Honey will be available for purchase, along with meat raised on a regenerative ranch. The ranch has had its beef tested through Utah State University, with organizers highlighting its nutritional qualities compared with conventional grain-finished beef.

Food, Fun and Community

The festival kicks off Friday evening, October 23, from 5–8 p.m., with pizza and hamburgers for attendees to enjoy while taking part in the festivities.

On Saturday, October 24, the day begins at 9 a.m. with a free breakfast, followed by additional food offerings, including pizza and hamburgers, from noon to 2 p.m.

Whether you’re interested in growing your own food, preparing your family for an emergency, supporting local producers, volunteering, learning something new, or simply enjoying a fall day with your neighbors, the Annual Harvest Festival offers something for everyone.

After five years of growth, organizers hope the Community Garden and Harvest Festival will eventually expand to involve communities throughout the Heber Valley.

The goal is simple: bring people together, strengthen local connections, share resources, and build a more self-reliant community — together.

About Heber Valley Self-Reliance

The Heber Valley Self-Reliance Group is a grassroots nonprofit dedicated to strengthening community resilience and personal capability through practical education, training, and collaborative support.

The group provides workshops, events, and hands-on opportunities focused on emergency preparedness and self-sufficient living skills, including food production, water management, alternative energy, and financial resilience. Through these efforts, the organization works to empower individuals and families with the knowledge, skills, and resources they need to navigate life’s challenges with greater confidence and self-reliance.

The group also places a strong emphasis on community building, bringing residents together to share knowledge, develop practical skills, and create a more prepared, connected, and capable Heber Valley.

The Wasatch Community Foundation is proud to partner with the Heber Valley Self-Reliance Group by helping provide resources, sponsorship, and visibility for initiatives including self-reliance fairs, community events, and hands-on skill-building projects.

For more information about Heber Valley Self-Reliance, visit hebervalleyready.org.

Event Details

2026 Annual Harvest Festival
Presented by: Heber Valley Self-Reliance Group and Wasatch Community Foundation
Dates: Friday, October 23, 5–8 p.m. & Saturday, October 24, 9 a.m.–2 p.m.
Location: 1335 East Center Street, Heber City, Utah
Admission: Free

For more information, visit hebervalleyready.org.

Here’s a fun gardening secret: flowers and vegetables love growing together. Interplanting blooms with edibles boosts beauty and pollination. So why not tuck a few pots onto your patio or add a couple of raised beds to your yard? Even with a busy life, starting—or expanding—a garden is absolutely possible. Yes, really.

Growing food at home—whether in the ground or in raised beds—builds more than nutrition. It builds confidence. And it doesn’t have to be complicated or labor-intensive. With a few simple adjustments, you can create a wildly beautiful, productive garden in a single season, growing a surprising amount of food in a relatively small space.

The real secret to a thriving, organic garden is soil nutrition. Rich compost makes all the difference. Making your own compost is easy, inexpensive, and often better than anything you can buy—without the risk of burning crops, which can happen with chemical fertilizers.

One of the best soil boosters? Well-rotted manure. Horse and cattle owners often have years-old piles they’re happy to share, while chicken and goat owners clean pens regularly and usually give away their nutrient-rich manure. Gently rake or lightly shovel it into the top few inches of soil. For an added boost, you can spray or sprinkle organic amendments like seaweed extract or earthworm castings.

A light dusting of Epsom salts and sulfur pellets can also help. These inexpensive additions gently lower soil pH, making minerals more available to plants and encouraging stronger growth and better fruit production.

Compost ingredients are everywhere. Dried or green plants, grass clippings, fallen leaves, pine needles—even weeds—are packed with essential nutrients. Old hay and straw make excellent mulch, especially when layered 12 to 18 inches deep to suppress weeds. Worried about seeds hiding in straw? Just pile it up and water it first—any sprouts will die before the straw ever reaches your garden.

Sawdust or shredded wood chips encourage beneficial fungi and bacteria that help deliver more nutrients and water to your plants—sometimes up to seven times more. You can plant right into two or three inches of mulch by scattering seeds in wide rows or creating close rows with a hoe and lightly covering them with soil.

Wide rows—anywhere from one to four feet across—are ideal. Space plants so they touch at maturity, which helps retain soil moisture and keeps roots happy. Plants with moist roots thrive, and underground networks of beneficial fungi even help them share resources with one another.

You can mix compost ingredients all at once or layer them in place—the earthworms will happily do the rest. Over time, that thick mulch settles down to about four to six inches. As plants grow, keep topping it off with fresh mulch: lawn clippings, pine needles from a neighbor’s tree, or sawdust from a woodshop. With healthy mulch, watering just once a week is often enough to keep plants green, flowering, and thriving.

This year, my husband and I are transforming a garden area east of our high-tunnel greenhouse near the creek. With a small pavilion and lawn, it’s a perfect spot to blend beauty and productivity. Protected from the harsh afternoon sun, it’s ideal for pollinators, too. We’ve planted a generous three-foot-wide row of black-eyed Susans and wildflowers to draw bees right into the greenhouse.

Where we once grew greens and herbs on landscape fabric, we’re now planting potatoes, onions, carrots, and beets. Between wide rows, we’ll tuck in chives, leeks, and bush beans to support soil health and add nitrogen. Across the creek, where orchard grass has stubbornly held on for decades, we’ll reclaim the space with landscape fabric, compost, and towering sunflowers—followed by corn and black oil sunflowers—to create a stunning, productive wall.

Along the stream, wildflowers and herbs will thrive in the cool, moist air. Lemon balm, spearmint, peppermint, and kitchen staples like basil, rosemary, and oregano will fill the space with color and fragrance. We also love scattering seed mixes under fruit trees—adding charm while improving tree health with nitrogen-fixing greens and groundcover.

Near the fences, tall herbs like borage mingle with easy-to-harvest edibles such as red amaranth, chia, and flax. Vertical arches made from cattle panels support pole beans and winter squash, while cucumbers and tomatoes climb fences. Large squash happily wander beneath fruit trees, right where they belong.

A garden like this feeds more than your table. It nourishes body and soul, brings joy to family life, and offers the quiet comfort of knowing you can grow your own delicious, highly nutritious food. Spring is calling—and it’s a beautiful time to answer.

Heber Valley Self-Reliance Group

hebervalleyready.org

Wasatch Fire District
251 E 1200 S – Heber City

ALL COMMUNITY CLASSES ARE FREE

MARCH 2026

Steady Minds in Crisis
Psychological Approach to First Aid

Don’t Go Hungry
Planning for Food Security

Everyday Emergencies
First Aid for People & Pets

Your Bags are Packed
From Getting Home to Never Going Back

APRIL 2026

Liquid LIFELINE
Water Security in a Crisis

Nourishment & Morale
Food Storage & Off-Grid Cooking

Neurological Emergencies
Seizures, Strokes, & Sudden Neurological Events

May 2026

PANDEMICS
Preparedness & Shelter in Place

WHEN BABIES CAN’T WAIT
Emergency Childbirth

POWER & LIGHT IN EMERGENCIES
Light Sources When the Grid is Down