Farm Animal Day is a chance to peek behind the scenes at a working farm and visit our farm animals up close (including a few baby ones!) This year expect cattle, pigs, chickens, baby chicks and some special guests from Slate Ochre Farmstead! Our llama neighbors will be back this year and Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA!

The Barn Store will be open starting at 9am and local food vendors will be on site. Our walking trails will also be open for the season!

Food Vendors: BBQ U and Taiga Pura Vida coffee

Important safety notes about Farm Animal Day:

• Please leave your dogs and pets at home today! Our guardian dogs will be working closer to the barn due to the event, and it helps us keep things simple.

• Please be aware all our animal fencing is electrified.

• Because this is a working farm, we don't allow touching the animals or entering the fenced enclosures. We want to keep all of our babies safe, including yours!

• We will be taking precautions against avian flu: if you have backyard chickens, we will ask that you remain at a distance from our birds for risk mitigation.

$10/car

($5 for 2026 CSA Members)

Drop in between 10 am and 2 pm to make your own wreath with fresh greenery & dried materials from the around farm. Please bring your own gloves and clippers if you have them. Cost is $40 to make a wreath and can be paid on site.  

The barn store will also be open with gifts and farm foods for sale. If you can't make one of our sessions but still want a wreath, we offer take-home wreath kits (below left).

Email us if you would like more information about private wreath-making sessions.

Join us for a special holiday market featuring DIY workshops, seasonal produce & grocery items from local/regional producers, and holiday gifts from local artisans (or made yourself!)

Local Holiday Gift Market — we’ll have a wide range of seasonal produce and grocery items from local producers, if you want to treat your friends and family to edible gifts this holiday season (jams, pickles, maple syrup, honey, and more!). We’ll also have other holiday gift options, like beeswax candles, handspun yarn, handmade ornaments, goat milk soap, and more.

Drop-in Wreath Making Workshop — featuring freshly cut greenery from the farm. Drop in anytime between 10am-2pm. There’s plenty of space for all and we’ll provide all the materials you need. Walk ups welcome OR you can prepay below.

SOLD OUT! Observers welcome. Hand Blow Glass Ornament Workshop — with Milk Glass Blowing.
The workshop is about 45 minutes long and will give you the chance to create your own handmade glass ornament! Each ornament is completed in under 10 minutes. With 5 spots available per session, workshops are small and interactive. If you’d like to blow glass with friends or family, simply sign up for the same workshop together. Once you’ve completed your piece, you’re welcome to stay and watch others create—or head out once you’re finished.
**NOTE: Glass artwork will NOT be ready to take home the day of the workshop! Pick up can be arranged with Bellair Farm the week after the workshop and beyond as needed. During the workshop, you’ll: 

• Choose the colors for your piece

• Handle molten glass with our guidance

• Blow air into the blowpipe to shape your work...and more! 

IMPORTANT DETAILS: * Long hair must be tied back. Closed-toed shoes required. * Bring water to stay hydrated! * Arrive 10-15 minutes early to check-in * Wear cotton clothing/natural fibers. No spandex or yoga wear. Shorts are acceptable! * Participants must be 18 years of age or older unless accompanied by an adult in the same workshop.

Drop in between 10 am and 2 pm to make your own wreath with fresh greenery & dried materials from the around farm. Please bring your own gloves and clippers if you have them. Cost is $40 to make a wreath and can be paid on site.  

The barn store will also be open with gifts and farm foods for sale. If you can't make one of our sessions but still want a wreath, we offer take-home wreath kits (below left).

Email us if you would like more information about private wreath-making sessions.

Drop in between 10 am and 2 pm to make your own wreath with fresh greenery & dried materials from the around farm. Please bring your own gloves and clippers if you have them. Cost is $40 to make a wreath and can be paid on site.  

The barn store will also be open with gifts and farm foods for sale. If you can't make one of our sessions but still want a wreath, we offer take-home wreath kits (below left).

Email us if you would like more information about private wreath-making sessions.

Join us for this early Wreath-Making Workshop for a good cause: helping the Charlotesville-Albemarle SPCA!

Bellair Farm will provide all the greenery, tools, and wire form that you need for your wreath! We will instruct you on a general how-to and leave you to it! The CASPCA will be bringing some additional decorative items from The Scrappy Elephant to gussy up your beautiful creation!

You may like to bring gloves to protect your hands or your favorite pair of clippers (we will also have clippers at the farm).

Wreaths are $65 with $30 of that going directly to the CASPCA. You may make additional donations to their cause in-person at the event!

The Bellair Barn Store will be open during the event if you have any interest (not required).

Celebrate local food & agriculture with Bellair Farm and special guests. FREE & open to the public.

Agroforestry Education & Beer Garden Fundraiser
by Appalachian Sustainable Development
Fine Creek Brewing beer sales benefit ASD

Family-Friendly Farm Activities
farm animals, tractor sit, & barrel train

Barn Store & Community Market
food, coffee, crafts, and more
SEE FULL FESTIVAL SCHEDULE HERE

Join Bellair crew and friends from 4-7pm for:
Farm-to-table plates by chef Bud Porter, SFG Food
Wine tasting and sales by Dogwood & Thistle Wine Co.
Live music from Zach and Ryan

This is a wonderful opportunity to discover simple ways to improve your health just by spending time outdoors. There will be plenty of fun for everyone, including a Wildrock play station, a hammock hang out, rafting, live music, crafts, and much more. Bellair Farm will be there with a veggie tasting table!

Location:
James River Reeling & Rafting
265 Ferry St, Scottsville, VA 24590

Come on out to the farm for good food, good tunes, and good company!

• 9am Wildflower Walk with Michelle - explore new corners of the farm that she has not visited on previous tours!

• 10-11:30am Recipe Demo by Mount Ida Executive Chef Jabari Wadlington

• Live Music by Gina Sobel

• Food by Chef Bud Porter, SFG Food (“so freaking good”)

• Knife Sharpening by Jacob, Honey Honed - bring your kitchen knives for a tune up while you enjoy the other activities

As usual, our walking trails and the pick-your-own field will be open.

A little slice of community Celebrating Charlottesville's tomato Harvest!
—Art Competition
—Home Gardener Tomato Contest
—Local Produce & Food Vendors

You may associate Sept or October with tradition harvest festivals, but August is, too! The old Gaelic festival of Lughnasa, August 1st, marks the beginning of the harvest season. Celebrate with us this Saturday with a fun kid’s activity, plentiful Pick-Your-Own, tips for veggie preservation, bulk produce deals on tomatoes, peppers, and cabbage, live music, and walk-up knife sharpening.

• 9:30am Kid’s Art Activity in the Pick-Your-Own, lead by Michelle

• 10:30am Ask Me Anything: Preserving the Harvest - a rare opportunity to pick Michelle’s brain about vegetable preservation

• Knife Sharpening - bring your knives/scissors, etc. and have them sharpened while you shop and enjoy the other activities.

• Music by Gina Sobel

• Art for sale

Come on out to the farm for good food, good tunes, and good company!

• 10am Yoga Workshop: “Summer in Ayurvedi Medicine” by Salute the Sun Yoga. 60 min yoga workshop. Bring a mat plus water, a hat/sunglasses, sunscreen etc. Book Here (select July 12, then “Summer in Ayurvedic Medicine” at 10am)

• 10-11:30am Recipe Demo (potatoes & other prime seasonal veggies) by Mount Ida Executive Chef Jabari Wadlington

• 10:30am-1:30pm Live Music Derek Anderson & Friends

• ~11am-2pm Flower Arranging Bar (with Molly, after the yoga workshop) pay by stem/bouquet size; with flowers from the Bellair Pick-Your-Own

• Wine Tasting with Dogwood and Thistle: owned by husband and wife team Sandy and Erin Robertson, Dogwood & Thistle is a passion project which allows them to work with small lots of fruit and make the wines that they love to drink and share!

• Food by Crustworthy Pizza

• “Drop Off” Knife Sharpening — make sure your knives are wrapped securely in a tea towel/bag and labeled with your name and phone number (we’ll have label supplies). Jake will pick up the knives after the event and sharpen during the week. He will call you when they are done and you can either arrange pick up with him OR pick on at the Barn Store on Saturday July 19.

As usual, our walking trails and the pick-your-own field will be open.

Help us kick off our Summer Second Saturday series! Come on out to the farm for good food, good tunes, and good company!

• Recipe Demo: Kohlrabi & Beets by Mount Ida Executive Chef Jabari Wadlington

• Wine Tasting with Dogwood and Thistle: owned by husband and wife team Sandy and Erin Robertson, Dogwood & Thistle is a passion project which allows them to work with small lots of fruit and make the wines that they love to drink and share!

• Food by Chef Bud Porter, SFG Foods (“so freaking good”)

• Music by Gina Sobel

• Knife Sharpening by Jacob, Honey Honed

As usual, our walking trails and the pick-your-own field will be open.

Hosted by Appalachian Sustainable Development

See Bellair’s budding silvopasture that’s designed to take advantage of the edges of the farm to produce multipurpose trees for shade, ecosystem benefits, and fencepost material. Our pragmatic design uses simplicity to gain big benefits with low complexity.

Join this farm tour of the silvopasture, riparian buffer plantings, and diverse animal systems, followed by networking and an Agroforestry Q&A after a brown bag lunch.

Our second bird walk of the year! Join Will Kurtz on a guided amble around the farm and see some of our avian residents. This is great time of year to catch migrating birds and Bellair has several different types of habitat, both wooded and open grassland.

Bring binoculars if you have them and shoes for walking/potential mud. Be prepared for quite a bit of walking, approx 2 miles total.

FREE and open to the public. No registration required — meet at the Barn Store promptly at 8am.

Let’s gather together to celebrate Earth Day with good company and earth-loving activities!

Scheduled Activities:

• Secretary’s Rd Clean Up Crew 9-10am, then head down to the Barn for a snack and other activities. Sign up here.

• Guided Farm Walks with Michelle 10am & 12pm Learn a little more about the ecology of the land, our conservation efforts, and our farming practices.

All Day Activities:

• Plant Sales herbs and Spring vegetables, medicinal and native plants

• Live Music by the Elderberry Jam band

• Clothing Swap: contact us if you are interested in bringing clean, gently-used clothing.

• Garden Supply/Plant/Seed Swap: bring us your excess seeds, any gardening tools that you no longer need, and your extra cuttings/houseplants

• Farm Giveaways: FREE mulch (BYO containers), large cardboard (for garden mulching), doghouse

• Collection Stations: bring us clean, gently used

  • brown paper grocery bags

  • Bellair black plant pots

  • blue-green pint/quart containers (we can reuse!)

  • Bellair glass jars, or jars/containers we can use for Pick-Your-Own flowers

The Barn Store will be open as usual with produce, pastured meat & eggs, local food products and our walking trails will be open as well if you feel like doing a self-guided farm tour.

This event is FREE and open to the public.

Our popular ‘baby’ animal day is getting a rebrand this year: Farm Animal Day is a chance to peek behind the scenes at a working farm and visit our farm animals up close (including a few baby ones!)

The Barn Store will be open starting at 9am and local food vendors will be on site. Our walking trails will also be open for the season!

Food Vendors BBQ U (homestyle beef, pork, & chicken barbecue) and Om Tacos (vegetarian, vegan, & gluten free options).

Important safety notes about Farm Animal Day:

• Please leave your dogs and pets at home today! Our guardian dogs will be working closer to the barn due to the event, and it helps us keep things simple.

• Please be aware all our animal fencing is electrified.

• Because this is a working farm, we don't allow touching the animals or entering the fenced enclosures. We want to keep all of our babies safe, including yours!

• We will be taking precautions against avian flu: if you have backyard chickens, we will ask that you remain at a distance from our birds for risk mitigation.

$10/car

($5 for 2025 CSA Members)

Drop-in the greenhouse any time between 10 and 2 and help our crew cut seed potatoes and continue Spring veggie seeding.

FREE, no registration required, just drop in!

Bellair Farm is a wonderful place to bird! Longtime friend of the farm Will Kurtz will lead a guided amble around the farm and point out some of our late winter avian residents.

This bird walk is beginner-friendly, but it’s a great location for advanced birders. There are several active raptor nests around the farm right now. There is also a group of red-headed woodpeckers near the old dairy barn.

Bring binoculars if you have them and shoes for walking/potential mud. Be prepared for quite a bit of walking, approx 2 miles total.

FREE and open to the public. No registration required — meet at the Barn Store promptly at 8am.

Led by Bellair farmer Michelle McKenzie. The workshop will start with a greenhouse tour, the middle portion will be an overview of home gardening and seed starting tips. Finally, a long Q and A/discussion session will follow. You can bring questions and concerns from your garden (photos can help) and I can see if I have tips! We can also talk about planning for the upcoming season and what's easy to grow yourself vs what you'd prefer to buy. It should be informative and fun for everyone!

FREE, no registration required.

Come help us seed for spring! Drop-in any time between 10 and 2. We will be seeding onions in the warm Bellair Greenhouse. Chat with Bellair crew member Mackenzie and see how we get things started for the season! Attendees will go home with free seeds for their gardens.

FREE, no registration required, just drop in!

Drop in between 10 am and 2 pm to make your own wreath with fresh greenery & dried materials from the around farm. Please bring your own gloves and clippers if you have them. Cost is $40 to make a wreath and can be paid on site.  

The barn store will also be open with gifts and farm foods for sale. If you can't make one of our sessions but still want a wreath, we offer take-home wreath kits (below left).

Email us if you would like more information about private wreath-making sessions.

Drop in between 10 am and 2 pm to make your own wreath with fresh greenery & dried materials from the around farm. Please bring your own gloves and clippers if you have them. Cost is $40 to make a wreath and can be paid on site.  

The barn store will also be open with gifts and farm foods for sale. If you can't make one of our sessions but still want a wreath, we offer take-home wreath kits (below left).

Email us if you would like more information about private wreath-making sessions.

Drop in between 10 am and 2 pm to make your own wreath with fresh greenery & dried materials from the around farm. Please bring your own gloves and clippers if you have them. Cost is $40 to make a wreath and can be paid on site.  

The barn store will also be open with gifts and farm foods for sale. If you can't make one of our sessions but still want a wreath, we offer take-home wreath kits (below left).

Email us if you would like more information about private wreath-making sessions.

Drop in between 10 am and 2 pm to make your own wreath with fresh greenery & dried materials from the around farm. Please bring your own gloves and clippers if you have them. Cost is $40 to make a wreath and can be paid on site.  

The barn store will also be open with gifts and farm foods for sale. If you can't make one of our sessions but still want a wreath, we offer take-home wreath kits (below left).

Email us if you would like more information about private wreath-making sessions.