Narrows Botanical Garden Harvest Festival shines new light on the word “local”

Dogs in disguise were just the beginning at the annual Harvest Festival sponsored by the Narrows Botanical Garden.

The October 11 event, held inside the garden in Shore Road Park at 71st Street, also included local craft-makers selling their unique artistic pieces, and the Great Pumpkin Patch for kids to paint and decorate pumpkins.

Narrows Botanical Garden Co-founder Jimmy Johnson spoke highly of the family-friendly event, saying the festival had an “excellent turn out,” and that he was “really happy, because everything is weather-related but we had a beautiful day.”

Johnson also noted that it was “exciting to have a true community event,” stressing, “Everything within our event was locally based.” All the food at the event was provided by local neighborhood restaurants, he said while all the crafts were “unique, built and made,” by people from the Bay Ridge community. Embracing the support of local business was Johnson’s focus for the Harvest Festival as a whole.

Keeping in the theme of local pride, Johnson said that the pumpkins for the pumpkin patch — that went on to “make over 300 children happy” — were donated by Three Guys from Brooklyn in Dyker Heights.

Overall, said Johnson, there was a “friendly warm vibe,” at the festival, creating a sense of “closeness” in the community.

Johnson believes the local involvement is what makes the Harvest Festival such a different kind of event, and is what continues to make it an event that sticks out amongst the rest.

The Narrows Botanical Garden has held this event for the past 20 years, noted Johnson, “We know what we are doing, and our recipe seems to work. And I’d like more of that [sense of local community] for Brooklyn,” he concluded.