Berkshire Botanical Garden's Harvest Festival Returns

08:00AM / Monday, October 06, 2025Print Story | Email Story

STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. —Berkshire Botanical Garden will hold its annual Harvest Festival, Oct. 11 and 12, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Every October, the Garden's 24-acre grounds undergo a transformation celebrating community, the natural world and the region's agricultural heritage. This year, the Garden will present an array of family-friendly activities, live music, a scarecrow design contest, a clothing and accessories sale, and a wide selection of regional artisan food and crafts vendors.

Children's activities include pony rides, a haunted house, a hay maze and hay jump, face painting, hayrides, a petting zoo, square dancing, and more. A full lineup of live entertainment for all ages will take place on the Main Stage, featuring the Wanda Houston Band, the O-Tones, the Sunday Strummers Ukulele Ensemble, and Katherine Winston.

The event is also a prime shopping opportunity with 50 craft vendors, a plant sale and the "Accessorize" pop-up shop, offering gently used clothing, jewelry, hats, scarves, and housewares.

New in 2025 is the Scarecrow Walk and Design Contest. Businesses, non-profit organizations and community groups are invited to design scarecrows for display in the Garden's Daylily Walk. Entries will be judged by Harvest Festival attendees, with fabulous prizes for the first and second place winners.

Buy tickets in advance and save. Advance tickets are $12 for adults; children under 12 are free. Same-day tickets will be available at the gate (Adults $15, children under 12 free). There is no charge for parking in the Garden's adjacent fields. Pets (with the exception of registered service dogs) are not permitted. ATMs will be available on-site.

Harvest Festival's lead sponsor is Blue Q. Other event sponsors are Berkshire Bank, Bartlett Tree Experts, and Element Lenox Berkshires. The Festival's in-kind sponsors include Berkshire Green Septic, Lime Rock Park, Meadow Farm Equipment, Naumkeag, The Red Lion Inn, Robin's Candy Shop, Sandisfield Orchard, and Six Flags New England.

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South County Celebrates 250th Anniversary of the Knox Trail

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
06:18PM / Sunday, January 11, 2026

State Sen. Paul Mark carries the ceremonial linstock, a device used to light artillery. With him are New York state Sen. Michelle Hinchey and state Sen. Nick Collins of Suffolk County.

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. —The 250th celebration of American independence began in the tiny town of Alford on Saturday morning.

Later that afternoon, a small contingent of re-enactors, community members and officials marched from the Great Barrington Historical Society to the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center to recognize the Berkshire towns that were part of that significant event in the nation's history.

State Sen. Paul Mark, as the highest ranking Massachusetts governmental official at the Alford crossing, was presented a ceremonial linstock flying the ribbons representing every New York State county that Henry Knox and his team passed through on their 300-mile journey from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston in the winter of 1775-76.

"The New York contingent came to the border. We had a speaking program, and they officially handed over the linstock, transferring control of the train to Massachusetts," said Mark, co-chair of Massachusetts' special commission for the semiquincentennial. "It was a great melding of both states, a kind of coming together."

State Rep. Leigh Davis called Knox "an unlikely hero, he was someone that rose up to the occasion. ... this is really honoring someone that stepped into a role because he was called to serve, and that is something that resonates."

Gen. George Washington charged 25-year-old bookseller Knox with bringing artillery from the recently captured fort on Lake Champlain to the beleaugured and occupied by Boston. It took 80 teams of horses and oxen to carry the nearly 60 tons of cannon through snow and over mountains.

Knox wrote to Washington that "the difficulties were inconceivable yet surmountable" and left the fort in December. He crossed the Hudson River in early January near Albany, crossing into Massachusetts on what is now Route 71 on Jan. 10, 1776. By late January, he was in Framingham and in the weeks to follow the artillery was positioned on Dorchester Heights.

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