The 5th annual Vermont Blueberry Festival at Craftsbury Farmers Market is free and everyone is invited. Enjoy the festivities on the stunning Craftsbury Common town green. Bring your camera!

Craftsbury Farmers’ Market vendors get creative and produce blueberry-themed products especially for this event like:

• • AJ’s Happy Chick Farm – maple blueberry syrup, blueberry syrup, and blueberry jam
  • Almost Heaven Gluten-Free Bakery – Gluten-free Blueberry Jam Crescent Roll & Gluten-free Blueberry White Chocolate Cookies
  • Chole’s Authentic Mexican Food – blueberry & pineapple tamales
  • Davey Gourmet Farm – blueberry panna cotta, blueberry Italian cream sodas, blueberry tarts, and blueberry pâtés
  • Deeda’s Baskets – blue baskets & blueberry painted baskets
  • Flour Bottom Bread – blueberry muffins and blueberry sourdough
  • Hawthorn Meadow Farmstead – special sale on all my blue colored tee shirts for the occasion
  • Hinterland Market – blueberry hot sauce, pop tarts, shrub (the drink) and smoothies
  • Nomadic Roots Studio & Kitchen – blueberry maple kombucha and razzberry blues kombucha
  • Stannard Farm Vermont Pure Maple Syrup – blueberry-maple sno-cones
  • Whimsicandle – blueberry candles
  • Wild Branch Valley Farm – blueberry short cake
  • Woodhenge Quilts – blueberry quilted products
  • Zen Valley CBD – blue raspberry CBD gummies
• • PLUS:
    • Enter our Vermont Blueberry Festival FREE drawing – Win prizes
      • Visit our market each Saturday from July 3rd through July 31, 2021 (Festival day) and enter our drawing each time for $100s in “Market Money”. Market Money may be spent at our vendors through October 2, 2021.
    • Free, family-friendly calliope music by Gordon’s Granite Calliope, perhaps the only “rock” in the world that performs. Here’s a Seven Days “Stuck in Vermont” episode (June 6, 2019) of Gordon’s Granite Calliope.
    • Meet a descendant of the high-bush blueberry developer, Dr. Frederick Vernon Coville.
    • Vermont Blueberry Festival Pie baking contest – Win $50 – Entry Form
    • Blueberry & pollinators theme face-painting by Audrey.
    • Caricatures by John Steven Gurney.

    Did you know?

    • The 3rd Annual (2018) Vermont Blueberry Festival at Craftsbury Farmers Market was selected as a “#1 Must See, Must Do Event” by Seven Days, Vermont’s Independent Voice Weekly.
    • Native blueberry shrubs have been around for tens of thousands of years.
    • Blueberry is a native shrub that was grown by Native Americans.
    • In the 1900s, Dr. Frederick Vernon Coville of the USDA, with New Jersey resident Elizabeth White, a commercial cranberry grower, selected blueberry shrubs from the wild and crosses that formed the basis of highbush varieties available today. Dr. Coville was a member of the National Geographic Society along with Teddy Roosevelt.
    • Descendants of Dr. Frederick Vernon Coville live in Craftsbury, VT.
    • Coville is a popular variety of the highbush blueberry in the Vaccinium genus (Vaccinium corymbosum ‘Coville’).
    • “The U.S. is the world’s largest producer of blueberries, harvesting a total of 564.4 million pounds of cultivated and wild blueberries in 2012.  More than 473.3 million pounds of cultivated blueberries were harvested, and about 60 percent were sold as fresh blueberries.” –foodreference.com
    • “Blueberries are the 2nd most important commercial berry crop in the United States, with a total crop value of nearly $850.9 million in 2012. (Strawberries are number 1)” –foodreference.com
    • “North America produces nearly 90% of world blueberry production (2005).” –foodreference.com
    • “The blueberry bush is a relative of the rhododendron and the azalea.” –huffingtonpost.com
    • “Blueberries protect against memory loss. A 2012 study suggested that eating at least one serving of blueberries a week slowed cognitive decline by several years. One possible explanation came from a 2013 study in mice, which found that berries might protect the brain by clearing toxic proteins that accumulate there.” –huffingtonpost.com
    • “One of the best facts about blueberries is that such a tasty treat is also highly nutritious. In fact, the nutritional value of blueberries is so off-the-charts high that you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything healthier to put in your mouth. Blueberries, quite simply, are one of the healthiest foods on the planet.” –backyard-gardening-fun.com
    • “Researchers have found blueberries to be higher in anti-oxidants than any other fruit or vegetable tested. By combating free-radicals in our bodies, anti-oxidants help protect against cancer and delay the aging process. But that’s not all, there’s evidence that blueberries can reduce urinary tract infections and protect against heart disease, too.” –Vern Grubinger, UVM Vegetable and Berry Specialist
    • July is National Blueberry Month.

    The Vermont Blueberry Festival at Craftsbury Farmers Market is one of many Vermont festivals celebrating aspects of life here. Check out these websites to find more Vermont family-friendly festivals and events.

    • Visit Vermont
    • Find and Go Seek
    • Everfest