FARMINGTON — Despite a scarcity of fiddleheads so far this cool spring, the fourth annual Maine Fiddlehead Festival and Local Food Day takes place Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Emery Community Art Center on the campus of the University of Maine at Farmington.

Academy Street will be closed for the day for the festival’s display of antique tractors, food vendors and animals to see and touch, Luke Kellett, committee member and Sustainable Campus Coalition director, said.

There will be a children’s activities and 30 vendors, including farmers and crafters, he said.

The festival highlights local foods, Chris Knapp said. Knapp and his wife, Ashirah, own Koviashuvik Local Living School in Temple and are regular presenters at the festival.

This year, their Tent Talk will include discussion of winter storage of food with root cellars or alternatives. They will also demonstrate how to make carrot and cabbage sauerkraut, he said.

At this time of year, eating locally grown foods means those stored from last year’s crop, said Knapp, who built a root cellar at the school to store potatoes, cabbage and apples.

For those without root cellars, creating a storage space in places like a bulkhead or other cold, damp spaces with sawdust used to control moisture is a method Knapp plans to discuss at his 1 p.m. session.

The festival planning committee has lined up short presentations with other providers, including a fiddlehead walk and talk with Dave Fuller at 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m, making peasant-style bread with Paul Stancioff at 10:45 a.m., raising layer hens and meat birds with Gretchen Legler at 11:30 a.m.; local edible wild mushrooms with Cynthia Stancioff at 12:15 p.m.; and home cheese-making with Laura Grams at 1:45 p.m.

Several musical groups will perform between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

There will be two food trucks, Rolling Fatties from Kingfield and Marble Family Farm’s “Hottie mobile.” The other food options include The Homestead Restaurant and Bakery, Black Acres Farm, Kellett said.

More information is available on the festival’s website at www.mainefiddleheadfestival.com.

The festival is organized by a collaborative that includes the University of Maine at Farmington’s Sustainable Campus Coalition, the Farmington Downtown Association, UMaine Cooperative Extension, Franklin Savings Bank, Homestead Bakery, business leaders and area community members.

abryant@sunmediagroup.net