INNISFAIL – Area farms are busy harvesting fall crops. At The Jungle Farm, cabbage is one of them.
The Jungle Farm, located north of Innisfail, recently held its annual Sauerkraut Festival on Sept. 15.
“We’ve done the Sauerkraut Festival for about 10 years,” said Leona Staples, co-owner of The Jungle Farm. “Our goal really is to highlight food and the health (aspects) related to food. Sauerkraut is a perfect example of that because it has probiotics in it.
“It’s a very healthy choice. That’s really the focus of this weekend, to talk about food and healthy food,” she added. “Sauerkraut is a great thing for our body and probiotics have been known to be good for us.”
The festival welcomed a small number of visitors who braved the cold, wet weather. Visitors enjoyed foods made with sauerkraut and demonstrations by Staples on how to make sauerkraut.
“Our back play area is open all fall (including) the corn maze, the farm animals, peddle cars and strawberry mountain,” said Staples. “The weather was less than ideal for people to come out and enjoy those, but we also had a local soap maker who made us sauerkraut soap. We made chocolate cupcakes with sauerkraut in them and we served smokies,” she said.
One of those visitors was Doreen Petty of Innisfail.
“We live here and we want to support (The Jungle Farm),” said Petty, noting it was her first time at the farm for the Sauerkraut Festival. “My dad always made it when I was a young kid and we want to make sauerkraut soup.”
Despite the poor weather, Staples said she was pleased with the turnout, adding about 50 people in total came to the festival.
“On a normal weekend, I’d be disappointed with that (number) but on a rainy weekend I think that’s pretty amazing,” said Staples, noting the interest in local food and the growing connection between the farm and the community.
“On a day like this I wouldn’t expect a soul here at the farm because it was raining and miserable,” she said. “Now we had a number of families come out that were genuinely interested in learning how to make sauerkraut, to buy sauerkraut and people who are pretty keen to learn about it and very keen to understand about the whole world of probiotics,” Staples concluded.
