Thousands crowd into Farm Day in the City

Close to 15,000 people crowded into downtown Charlottetown for Farm Day in the City on Sunday.

The festival was marking its ninth year.

Queen Street was closed from Grafton to King, and the festival also stretched up Victoria Row and around Confederation Centre. It featured live music, cooking demonstrations, face painting and, of course, dozens of farmers selling their produce.

The P.E.I. Potato Board was the title sponsor for this year's event. It sold french fries for $2.00, with all the proceeds going to Family Violence and Prevention Services and P.E.I. 4-H.

Drought for some

As the city admired this year's harvest, the farmers were reflecting on a mixed year.

Michael Doucette grows organic vegetables to sell at local farmers' markets. He said the crops at Doucette Organics turned out just fine despite the dry summer, which he said was due to luck.

"I was a little concerned but once we got by that first little dry spell there, we just happened to get the showers," said Doucette, adding not everyone had the same luck.

"I've talked to different people and as little as 10 miles [16 kilometres] away and it was quite a difference. We just happened to get the thunder squalls when we needed them to get the ground wet again."

Now, Doucette is hoping the temperature doesn't drop too quickly or his butternut squash will be affected.

"The frost can hurt them if it's a heavy frost, but a light frost will actually sweeten them up a little bit, so just a fine line there, you don't want it to be too cold."

'Mother Nature is a wonderful creature'

Alex Docherty, the chair of the P.E.I. Potato Board and a farmer himself, also was pleasantly surprised by the harvest.

"So far we're about a third done harvesting, we're quite happy so far," said Docherty.

"The crop was actually kind of a surprise, it's a good average crop and the quality looks excellent. Now, we're going to have fields also that didn't get enough rain, but overall we're quite optimistic that it's going to be turning out good."

Docherty said he has heard positive things from other farmers.

"Actually a lot of the growers I've been talking to are quite surprised that the crop is as good as it is due to the conditions we went through," he said.

"Mother Nature is a wonderful creature."

Docherty said the drought in Ontario has led to good news for P.E.I., because there have already been shipments of potatoes from the Island. Docherty said there have been issues in many areas of North America, which should lead to a strong market for P.E.I. potatoes.

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