It might take all week for the dust to settle south of Charlottesville, as several hundred carloads of families and friends descended on North Garden for Vintage Virginia Apples and the CoveGarden Ruritan Club’s 8th Apple Harvest Festival on Saturday.

A small fairground and orchard played host to local food and craft vendors, hay rides, live music, and workshops on the west side of 29 south, near the Crossroads. We loved samples of unusual apple varieties like Limbertwig and Idared, cheeses from local Everona Dairy, and straight-from-the-vat Brunswick stew with a line twoscore long.

But our blue ribbon goes to CaroMont Farm of Albemarle for serving (brace yourself) a scoop of honey chevre mascarpone over slices of warm, sweet baked Virginia apples with homemade bread.

If you didn’t kick up some dirt this weekend, you can still find seasonal fare and support the many local businesses and producers behind it. Here’s a good place to start: the cheese counter at feast! where you can find pumpkin chevre, made by the Dodsons at Goats R Us.