NEXT weekend sees a very special event in the calendar of Worcestershire Farmers’ Market producers.

The annual Autumn Harvest Food Festival at St Peter’s Garden Centre, Worcester, is one of the highlights of the farmers’ market year, bringing together a large number of stallholders and artisan producers for one of the year’s biggest markets.

With more than 30 stalls packed into the garden centre car park, there is bound to be something for every taste, with all manner of food and drink on offer – as well as a large number of craft stalls providing quality handmade gifts.

The farmers’ market runs from 9.30am until 2pm. Of course, the event is not just about farmers’ markets.

Children will be well entertained by Mr Doo, the one-man solo circus, or they can have their faces painted by Funky Faces face-painting – maybe as a harvest vegetable!

Green Frog Pottery, Malvern’s paint-your-own pottery studio, will also be there, giving youngsters the chance to paint a spooky Halloween themed tile.

Also, the Gloucestershire Geology Trust Fossil Roadshow will be on hand with all manner of dinosaur and fossil-related activities, including make your own pterosaur finger puppets, create a Jurassic landscape or seascape and a make a trilobite mask workshop.

The garden centre’s Mark Rice said: “St Peter’s Garden Centre has hosted farmers’ markets for nearly two-and-a-half years now and we are working closely with the organisers and responding directly to our customers’ wishes.

The Autumn Harvest Food Festival is going to be a fantastic day for all the family to enjoy.”

The event, organised by St Peter’s Garden Centre, Heart of England Fine Foods (HEFF) and the Worcestershire Farmers’ Markets Association, is also offering Worcester News readers the chance to walk away with one of two hampers, packed full of the best possible local produce.

The hampers, worth £100 and £50 respectively, are being donated by farmers’ market producers, HEFF and St Peter’s.

Each will contain quality locallyproduced goods, as well as a selection of treats from St Peter’s new deli, Blake’s at Home.

The winners of the competition – which ran in Saturday's Worcester News (entries close on Saturday, October 18) – will be presented with their prizes at St Peter’s Garden Centre on the day Good luck!

If, however, you can’t wait to see what your local producers have to offer, why not head to this week’s farmers’ market at Abbey Road, Malvern.

Stalls are open from 9am until 2pm.

For more information about Worcestershire farmers’ markets, log on to the association’s website at www.wfmg.co.uk.