Fort Ross Harvest Festival 2026
Saturday, October 17, 2026
-(1).png)
Celebrate the harvest season at Metini-Fort Ross State Historic Park on Saturday, October 17, 2026, with a day of music, food, family activities, and autumn traditions in one of Sonoma County’s most historic landscapes. The Harvest Festival will bring together the community to celebrate the rich agricultural heritage of Sonoma County and the history of farming at Metini- Fort Ross.
The day’s program will include apple picking, pumpkin carving, live performances, arts and crafts, family activities, local vendors, local food, and guided tours of the historic orchard and the San Andreas Fault.
At the heart of the celebration is the historic Fort Ross orchard, the oldest orchard in Sonoma County and a living connection to more than two centuries of agricultural history.
Learn More About Sonoma’s Oldest Orchard https://www.fortross.org/places/orchard
That story began soon after the Russian-American Company established its settlement at Fort Ross on the lands of the Kashia Pomo in 1812. Peach trees were planted in 1814, followed by grapevines from Peru in 1817, the first grapes planted in what would become Sonoma County. Apple seeds arrived in 1818, and by 1820 more than 100 apple, pear, cherry, and peach saplings had been brought to Fort Ross. The gardens were equally diverse, producing potatoes, cabbage, carrots, beets, onions, melons, grapes, and pumpkins. One early visitor even recorded 50-pound pumpkins, a 15-pound turnip, and horseradish weighing about 45 pounds.
Fruit growing remained part of life at Metini-Fort Ross long after the Russian-American Company era. In 1856, William Benitz reported selling 20,000 pounds of apples and envisioned expanding his orchards to thousands of trees. By the late 1890s, George Washington Call was planting as many as 1,200 additional fruit trees, with apples and other agricultural products shipped from Fort Ross to San Francisco.
The people who planted the first peach trees here in 1814 could hardly have imagined that, more than two centuries later, families would still gather at Metini-Fort Ross to celebrate the harvest. On October 17, we invite you to join us among the orchard and historic buildings of Metini-Fort Ross State Historic Park and add another season to that long story.