‘Eat. Forage. Grow!’ Oakridge-Westfir Chamber is moving forward with Headwaters Harvest Festival

By DOUG BATES/Editor/The Herald — It’s just about impossible to take a walk or drive through Uptown Oakridge these days without noticing the eye-popping garden nearing harvest on the vacant lot next to the Cog Wild building.

Lush with marigolds and several varieties of pumpkins, squash and other fall produce, the “Tanner Lot Collaboration Garden Project” is a harbinger of festive times set to come later this month.

Lynda Kamerrer, president of the Oakridge Westfir Area Chamber of Commerce, says the community’s Headwaters Harvest Festival — cancelled last fall at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — will go ahead as scheduled this year on Oct. 30 and 31.

Built around the slogan “Eat. Forage. Grow!” the festival is billed by the chamber as a celebration of “mushroom foraging and identification, growing pumpkins, cooking with a chef, learning to eco-dye with local materials, and more.” The festival will feature both in-person and online workshops and events in and around Oakridge.

Meanwhile, the collaborative garden in Uptown serves to beautify East First Street while calling attention to the festival. A pair of signs in the garden explain it: “Enjoy viewing this ‘no-chemical-sprayed, hand-weeded and routinely watered’ joint effort of flower, fruit and vegetable varieties. Please appreciate watching it grow from a safe distance. Please, no picking.”

Cultivated for months, the garden is maintained by the chamber, Gene’s Rock Art and Cog Wild, the bicycle shuttle and tour service based in Oakridge on East First and Pine streets.

Kamerrer, who describes herself as “chief enthusiasm wrangler” on the project, credited many volunteers for making it happen:

— The local GardenClub, which asked Territorial Seeds to donate pumpkin seeds.

— Dan Tanner, who agreed to let the Chamber/Cog Wild till his lot and plant the garden.

— Mick Garvin, who contacted Dan, helped rototill, plant, tend, encourage fun.  (See the trebuchet, a type of catapult, at Garvin’s Deep Woods Distillery.)

— Jason Nehmer, the committee chair, planted, rototilled, donated compost, coordinated everything, held meetings, did social media posts.

— Double Trouble, Stewart’s 58, Banner Bank, First Tech Credit Union — these businesses helped distribute free pumpkin seeds so the community could be involved and use them in the fall for pumpkin carving and the trebuchet.

— Cog Wild provided water and labor donation for the past two years.

— Gene’s Rock Art watered, planted, harvested, beautified the plot

Besides beautifying the plot, the rich display of marigolds and other flowers are intended to repel pests and attract pollinators. The flowers are also edible, gardeners say.

The Headwaters Harvest Festival committee is scheduled to meet Oct. 11 to complete planning for the two-day, Kamerrer said.