Every October, Wardsboro celebrates the Gilfeather turnip as part of its fall tradition. The Gilfeather turnip has been the town's calling card since a handful of local schoolkids spent two years lobbying the statehouse, and on July 1, 2016, Vermont made it official: the state's only designated vegetable. This year's Gilfeather Turnip Festival runs Saturday, October 24, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., its 24th consecutive year. Everyone in town already knows the date. Half the state does too.
What almost nobody outside Wardsboro is tracking is the other thing happening on the calendar this same stretch of weeks: a resident-driven process that will decide what the town actually prioritizes for the next several years. It began on September 17 and invites residents to share ideas about what Wardsboro should become.
A Longstanding Fall Tradition
The turnip festival offers a familiar fall day trip. You drive to the Wardsboro Country Store, make a suggested parking donation, look at turnips, and go home. It has been part of Wardsboro’s fall calendar for nearly a quarter century. Wardsboro sits inside the Green Mountain National Forest, tucked between Mount Snow and Stratton, and for one Saturday a year it gets to be the answer to "what's a fun fall day trip in southern Vermont" instead of just the town you pass through on Route 100. That's a fine thing for a town to be. The planning process is another opportunity to consider what Wardsboro will look like in five years.
Three Meetings to Discuss Wardsboro’s Future
According to VermontBiz, Wardsboro residents were invited to Town Hall and the Methodist Church on September 17 for a free community dinner to kick off something called "Wardsboro Turns Up." It's a three-month community visit process run in partnership with the Vermont Council on Rural Development, a nonprofit that has facilitated similar work in more than 100 Vermont towns. The structure is deliberately sequential. The September 17 session was for brainstorming, an open floor for whatever residents think the town is missing or doing well. The next session, October 15, is where those ideas get narrowed into actual priorities. The final session, November 5, is where residents form task force groups and start building action plans with help from outside experts and resource providers.
That's not a listening tour. That's a town deciding, out loud, what it's going to spend its next few years on.
As reported by VermontBiz, Alyssa Johnson, VCRD's Community Visit Program Director, said when the process launched:
"This process is an exciting opportunity for the Wardsboro community to come together to shape the future of their town."
If you missed the September 17 dinner, the process hasn't closed to you. The remaining sessions are still ahead, and there's a standing option for people who can't make it in person:
- October 15 — priority-setting session, in person at Town Hall
- November 5 — action-planning session and task force formation
- A parallel Zoom forum covering all four discussion topics, for residents who can't attend either meeting in person
- An online survey for anyone who wants to weigh in without attending a meeting at all
The organizers have also removed some of the usual friction that keeps rural civic process thin. Childcare is provided at the library during the forums. Anyone without a ride can call a resident volunteer directly. Interpretation and other accommodations are available by request. That level of removed friction is unusual for a town meeting, and it tells you the organizers expect this to matter to more than the handful of people who always show up.
The Same Seven Weeks, Two Different Kinds of Attention
Line the dates up and the contrast gets sharper. September 17 was the opening dinner. October 15 is the priority-setting session. October 24, nine days later, is the turnip festival. November 5 closes the planning process. All of it lands across a seven-week stretch, giving Wardsboro residents opportunities to take part in both a familiar fall tradition and a town-planning process.
The festival and the planning process invite different kinds of participation. Wardsboro Turns Up is intended to gather views on the town's priorities, including from residents who cannot attend every session. The question is how to make those voices part of the conversation.
That's exactly why the online survey and the Zoom option matter more than they might look on paper. They're the mechanism for the town to hear from people who care about where Wardsboro is headed but can't restructure a Thursday evening three separate times to say so.
A Fall Story Beyond the Festival
The Gilfeather turnip is a genuinely good story, and Wardsboro should keep telling it. The festival celebrates a long-running town tradition; Wardsboro Turns Up offers residents a chance to discuss what comes next. The process is underway, and priorities from the October 15 and November 5 sessions will shape conversations about the town's village centers in Wardsboro Center, West Wardsboro, and South Wardsboro, as well as investment and infrastructure.
If you live here, the Wardsboro Turns Up sessions are another opportunity to take part in Wardsboro's fall and its future.
Put Both on the Calendar This Fall
Go to the turnip festival on October 24. It's a genuinely good tradition, and the Wardsboro Country Store is worth the stop on its own. Residents interested in the town's planning process can attend on October 15 or November 5, or fill out the survey at bit.ly/WardsboroTurnsUp before the process closes. The Vermont Council on Rural Development has run this exact process in dozens of towns, and wider participation can help bring more of Wardsboro's perspectives into the November discussion.
Wardsboro's turnip will still be here next October regardless of who's in the room this fall. The priorities the town sets over those seven weeks may shape Wardsboro for years to come.
Curious how towns like Wardsboro fit into the broader rhythm of life across southern Vermont, from village calendars to what's actually changing on the ground? Lauren Niles keeps a close eye on both, and welcomes a conversation anytime you're ready. Schedule a Personal Consultation.
