I wish I could go, but baltimore is just too far for me! I wish you guys would have it closer to DC one year. Any chance of that? There's lots of pavillions to reserve around here.

Tomatoes4 Ever

What's this festival like? How big is it? I love Baltimore and haven't been there in a while. If this is a good festival, all the more reason to go. Plus I could pick up a couple of pounds of Maryland jumbo lump blue crab!

azruss, MAGTAG is one of a group of regional tomato festivals loosely organized by folks here and on the website t0mat0ville.c0m (replace zeros with letters). There's Tomatopalooza in NC, DATE in Detroit, CHOPTAG in Cincinnati, SETTfest in SE TX, the Midwest Tomato Fest, NORCATT in No. CA, SPLATT in the SC Piedmont, the Buffalo-Niagara tomato festival, etc. etc.

Previous MAGTAG festivals have drawn anywhere from 30-50 attendees, depending upon the weather (one year it was 90+ and humid). Our covered pavilion holds 100 and includes four - count 'em - grills!

This will be our fourth year at the Baltimore location. Although some folks have suggested otherwise, it's conveniently located near all the major highways, as we usually have attendees from Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, NYC, West Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. We've even had folks from Hawaii and the Midwest! People bring samples of their harvests, and we have a tasting to determine the top ten favorite varieties. We also determine the largest tomato, and the food features tomato-based goodies from attendees, a BLT bar, and Greg Flynn's homebrew.

I've attached a link to the thread summarizing last year's event for you. I think Liz's photos are still available for viewing, if you scroll down to "Tomato Festival" in her Webshots album.

We'd all love for you to join us, if you can make it down to Crabtown for the festival!

Here is a link that might be useful: MAGTAG 2008 - A Resounding Success!

tomatoes4ever, we usually have quite a few folks from the DC area (including NOVA) attending MAGTAG. Perhaps you could carpool with one of them. Any volunteers?

Greg F. did a little research one year and found that the cost of renting a pavilion in the DC area comparable to the one in Baltimore was much higher. Also, the park we hold the festival in is literally only a mile or two from I-95, I-295 (BW Parkway), I-695 (the Baltimore Beltway) and even Route 1. So it's easily accessible to folks coming from all directions.

I hope you can find somebody to ride up with, as MAGTAG is a whole lot of fun for tomatophiles!