Long Beach Peninsula garlic fest keeps growing in popularly<\/p>\n
Published 12:46 pm Sunday, September 20, 2026<\/p>\n
Ereena Zmitrovich \u201cgrew a thousand and-a-half pounds of garlic and needed to sell it,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Zmitrovich was on site at a garlic festival on the Long Beach Peninsula. <\/p>\n
Owner of Zmit Haven Farm based in Battle Ground, Wash., it was her first time vending at the 44th annual garlic festival at The Roy E. Sheldon Park in the heart of Ocean Park officially named the Northwest GARRRRlic Festival, emphasizing this year\u2019s pirate theme. <\/p>\n
Marilyn Van Sickle, office administrator of the Ocean Park Area Chamber of Commerce and Suzanne Luttrell, board member and past president, said the pair \u2014 along with their team \u2014 had been working on the event for the past six months. <\/p>\n
Last year they counted about 5,000 attendees. It was Saturday Sept. 18 at 1p.m. when Luttrell estimated, \u201cwith the weather being what it is and everyone is having such a great time I\u2019d say our goal is about 6,000 people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luttrell said \u201cwe\u2019re clicking and checking\u201d as visitors file into the park filled with most garlic-centric vendors, a stage, live music, food and interactive fun, like a station to make giant bubbles. <\/p>\n
Van Sickle said they had 14 new vendors this year adding to the 55 they had last year. \u201cEach year we\u2019ve grown our festival. . . A lot has come from our own vendors referring us to new vendors,\u201d she said. \u201cEveryone seems to be very happy and they want to come back. It\u2019s a great festival. We love our vendors and they love this festival.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few changes were made this year based on feedback and a decision was made to incorporate the pirate theme this year. \u201cNormally we have live music both days,\u201d said Luttrell, \u201cwe\u2019ve gotten feedback in the past that we don\u2019t have enough kid focused activities. . .there\u2019s a lot of pirate gifts and decorations coming out tomorrow.\u201d <\/p>\n
Luttrell said the festival is made up of food, garlic, gifts, and collectibles. \u201cWe also love to have our non-profits here so they get exposure to their programs and resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eager attendees parked on residential side streets and along sidewalks all around the festival. Luttrell is grateful for the community support for a festival that brings so much happiness to the community. \u201cThe neighborhood and our neighbors are so good and so patient.\u201d <\/p>\n
One hurdle of the festival is the popularity itself \u2014 centered in the middle of Ocean Park. \u201cYou know one of our challenges is being in the middle of our community. If we got even 20 more vendors we\u2019d have to move. It\u2019s a good problem to have,\u201d said Luttrell. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long Beach Peninsula garlic fest keeps growing in popularly Published 12:46 pm Sunday, September 20, 2026 Ereena Zmitrovich…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-470251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}