Stock up on Ontario-grown garlic for winter. Bite into sizzling garlic dishes, indulge in garlic desserts, sip garlic-kissed cocktails, mocktails and craft beer, discover black garlic desserts, and toss back a free garlic shot. Explore stalls with garlic jellies, sauces, preserves, ferments and garlic-inspired handmade treasures. Settle in for Culture Talks and groove to live music — from country/folk to Oscar Peterson inspired . Cheer on the Garlic Bulb Cracking Contest, laugh through the Vampire Costume Contest, cheat in the Garlic Breath Contest, and leave with a rhyme by the Garlic Poet Laureate, written just for you. Toronto Garlic Festival is Presented by Dupont By the Castle BIA.
FREE ADMISSION • ONE DAY ONLY • RAIN OR SHINE • GARLIC IS ONTARIO-GROWN • 10,000 VISITORS
Enjoy free live music at the Toronto Garlic Festival Music Stage, Presented by Musideum; Curated by Donald Quan. For performer schedule scroll down for details.


Visitors can expect witty, garlic-inspired wordplay from Poet Laureate Haley Sarfeld, with pungent puns, tangy tongue-twisters, and on-the-spot riffs. Each guest will leave with a personalized, handwritten (cursive!) poem — a fragrant keepsake from the Toronto Garlic Festival.
BIO: Haley Sarfeld (she/they) is a writer, performer, poet, composer-lyricist, and all-around allium enthusiast living in Katarokwi/Kingston. Haley writes everything from crossword puzzles to theatre reviews to musicals about mythical serpents and neighbourhood cats, and she enjoys on-the-spot riffing with pungent puns and tangy tongue-twisters. In 2024, Haley was the recipient of a Nathan Cohen Award for Excellence in Theatre Criticism (Outstanding Emerging Critic), and she is honoured to be this year’s Garlic Poet Laureate at the Toronto Garlic Festival. Her favourite early summer snack is garlic scape pesto.
Photo credit: Donovan Perra (@donovan.perra)
Garlic Baristas offer free, fresh-pressed cloves of Ontario garlic to festival visitors, to add extra oomph and kapow to garlic dishes or, to get a leg up in the Garlic Breath Contest. Our Garlic Baristas get a good workout from peeling and pressing garlic all day long to keep up with demand! Parsley and lemon at the ready if needed!
This is a contest that actually helps a farmer!Get ready for a hands-on and exciting challenge at the Toronto Garlic Festival’s Garlic Bulb Cracking Contest! This fun activity invites participants of all ages to test their speed and precision in cracking open a garlic bulb into individual cloves. The contest brings together friendly competition and a bit of garlic know-how! Plus, you’ll be doing farmer Farmer Marchand Lamare a favour. He is delivering 25 lbs of garlic for the contest. The garlic cloves cracked by participants will be cracked by contest participants will be picked up at the end of the day by Marchand and taken back to his farm for planting. Here's a 50 second video by Farmer Ali Baloch of Fresh Veggies Farm on how to crack a garlic bulb for planting.













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