Top Harvest Festivals Around the World

Right now, all across the northern hemisphere, crops are being harvested or very soon will be. The seeds that were lovingly sown in the earth in summer are now maturing and offering their bounty to those noble souls who make it their work to grow and collect it for the rest of us, so that our grocery store shelves and farmers’ market stalls might be stocked and plentiful. And all across the northern hemisphere, people are celebrating, because the life-giving harvest is worth celebrating. Today, Vine Vera is going to tell you about some of the best and most enjoyable harvest festivals around the world, so that you might go and appreciate the land’s bounty.

It’s also worth noting that in the tropics and the southern hemisphere, there are undoubtedly harvest festivals there too, but in the southern hemisphere, the seasons are flipped, and the tropics see little change throughout the year. Today, we’re focusing on festivals you can go to now, since we’re writing this article in fall for our hemisphere, but bear in mind that if you’re willing to travel and experience new cultures, heading elsewhere at different times of the year for distant harvest festivals is indeed an option.

Ludwigsberg Pumpkin Festival, Ludwigsberg, Germany
Pumpkins aren’t just an autumnal icon of the harvest here at home; in Germany, there’s an entire festival dedicated to the rotund orange (and white, and green) gourds that have become so ingrained into fall holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving as jack-o-lanterns, pie ingredients, and decorations in their own right.

Here, you’ll find a whole lot of pumpkin flavored food and beverages (including things you’ve likely never thought of, like pumpkin burgers and pumpkin wine!), and a variety of interesting, odd, and quirky pumpkin-themed events, like the pumpkin boat race.

National Apple Festival, Biglerville, PA, United States
Like apples? Head to the national apple festival in Pennsylvania to get access to way more varieties of apple and apple-flavored delights than you know what to do with. You’ll find fresh apples of every variety imaginable—some you’ve likely never even heard of—and everything from apple pies to candy apples, caramel apples, apple ciders, and so, so much more.

Bala Cranberry Festival, Bala, Ontario, Canada
And to round off our iconic autumn fruits, let’s take a look at the humble but delicious cranberry, and the festival that does it the most justice: the Bala Cranberry festival in Canada. Here you’ll be able to sample and take home delightful specimens of cranberry sauces, jams, pies, candies of all sorts, and wines. Yes, you heard us, they’ll have cranberry wine. Fruit wines often go sadly underrated and underrepresented compared to their ubiquitous grape-derived counterparts, but a lot of delightfully tasty, very unique and complex wines are made from other fruits, so you could stand to give cranberry wine a taste or three, and take a bottle home while you’re at it!

Not only that, but there’s live entertainment, tours of a nearby bog, and more. We’re having a hard time thinking of reasons not to check out this delightful harvest festival.