Local children help Matt Murphy construct “Scene from Under the Ocean” at Sunday’s fall festival in Bethel.

BETHEL — A fall festival at Valentine Farm on Sunday featured food from various wild ingredients, a mushroom walk, and various workshops hosted throughout the day by the Mahoosuc Land Trust, which organized the event.

“The idea is to encourage people to grow, discover, and share local food,” said Barbara Murphy, manager of the event.

The event began with a talk by Jesse Stevens about his experience growing apples and learning how to graft. He described how he took young stems from a blue pearmain apple and grafted them onto the much larger stumps of young crabapple trees.

“I felt like the doctor Frankenstein of the plant kingdom,” Stevens said.

He described the process of falling in love with growing apples. “There’s a certain sort of mania that can take place as you’re reading through a seed catalogue,” he said.

He followed by explaining his eventual choice to grow an orchard in his yard, and how to develop an ecosystem that worked with the nature in the area. His opening talk set the theme of sustainability and growing your own food that would remain throughout the day.

Two food booths were present. One had pasta made from roasted red peppers or milkweed leaves, with multiple types of pesto as topping. The other was devoted to “wild foods.” All the meat was from animals hunted out in the wild, and included deer meat, mushroom dumplings, and bear meatballs.

The event also featured several events geared toward children. A particularly popular stop was the historical society’s 1985 cider press, which was at work throughout the day, churning cider for the event.

Addy and Doug help to press the cider for thirsty eventgoers.

Another event included wall decorating in the pollinator garden, led by Matt Murphy. He worked to create an ocean-inspired image, with wood carvings and yarn for children to attach to the wall as they pleased. There was also garden gnome house building, pumpkin painting, and leaf pressing.

While visiting the garden, Murphy explained the planting rotation of the crops.

“Annuals are 20-25% of what we do,” he said.

The pollinator garden is a flourishing habitat for bees, butterflies, and finches. The garden held 30 monarch caterpillar cocoons, yet to hatch.