Why? Because it’s time for the 15th annual Grainger County Tomato Festival! (July 27-29th)

My wife and I will be making our annual pilgrimage this coming Saturday to spend the day enjoying this fun for all event (I have other agents covering my business in case you can’t wait until Monday ;-) ).

tomato

Organized in 1993 the Tomato Festival has grown into a huge undertaking to showcase the Grainger County Tomato crop, area artists, craftsmen, and other local enterprises. Today it’s one of the largest local events in the state of Tennessee.

Here’s an aerial photo from last year.

Rutledge tn

This year’s festival features the always popular “Tomato Wars” with lots of overripe tomatoes as ammo. Teams are formed to pelt each other with the squishy veggies. I’m not sure how they determine a winner but everyone comes away dripping tomatoes pulp and juice all over.

grainger county tennessee tomato wars

Everyone is nice and clean at the begining of the Tomato Wars.

In addition to the tomato fights there is a beauty contest, car show, civil war reenactments, arts, crafts, music, food, and lots of good clean (except for the Tomato Wars participants ;-) ) fun for all.

If you’re a fan of good tasting tomatoes, Grainger County grows some of the best around. Started in early season in seemingly endless rows of hothouses, Grainger County Tomatoes are among the first ‘homegrown’ products to hit the markets in early spring and they continue to produce until first frost.

knoxville tn

UPDATE: Here’s some photos I took at the festival today. It was great with record crowds and lots of fun things going on.

Here is the Knoxville News Sentinel’s coverage of the Tomato Wars