Our 5th Annual Backyard Locavore Day will be held on Aug. 10 in various communities within Cumberland County. Events in Brunswick, Falmouth, Freeport, North Yarmouth, Portland, Raymond, South Portland, Scarborough and Windham begin at 10 a.m. and end at 4 p.m. Registration is $15 in advance, $20 day of event and children under 12 are free. This is a rain or shine event.

Tickets can be ordered online:  http://umaine.edu/cumberland/programs/locavore/    More information is available by contacting 207-781-6099 or (800)-287-1471 in Maine, or email: Lois.Elwell@maine.edu.

Registrants will receive a booklet in July describing each site and a map showing specific locations. Locavore Day is designed to educate members of the public about learn do-it-yourself strategies for becoming a locavore, who is someone who eats food grown or produced locally. Every year more and more people grow, raise, harvest and preserve foods in a sustainable way to meet individual food needs.

Each backyard will have a Master Gardener volunteer to answer your questions on gardening methods, including vegetable and square-foot gardening, backyard composting, root cellars, greenhouses, beekeeping, backyard poultry.  Specific food-preservation methods such as drying, hot water bath canning, making herbal vinegars and jam making may be discussed with a Master Food Preserver volunteer.  There will be complementary food samples.

This event raises funds for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s Cumberland County Food Preservation Programming at the UMaine Regional Learning Center in Falmouth.