On Saturday, October 17, the Larry P. Abraham Agri-Nature Center at 4920 Rio Grande Boulevard NW opens its gates from 2 to 6 pm for its free annual Fall Festival. The Village is promising apple cider pressing, chile roasting, pumpkin carving, local food trucks, beer and wine, arts and crafts, and music. Four weeks earlier, on September 19, that same ground hosted the first community open house for a master plan that will decide what the center becomes. According to the Village, the plan's job is to pull the center's current programs, projects and infrastructure into a single long-term vision. Saturday is the one afternoon this fall when almost all of those programs are running in the same place at the same time.
A Plan Built From What Already Exists
The Agri-Nature Center Master Plan isn't a blank-slate redesign. The Village describes it as a way to integrate what's already there into a unified vision built around sustainable growth, community wellness and environmental stewardship. Once finished, it will be adopted by the Board of Trustees as an official policy document that guides current and future staff at the center.
The Village hired Surroundings Studio, a New Mexico-based landscape architecture and design studio, to write it. A Master Plan Advisory Committee chaired by Gil Benavides supports the work. The other members are Sue Brawley, Lyndsey Garber, Steve Garcia, Annie Sanchez, Bill Shen and Nina Simbana. If you missed the September open house, the Village's online survey is still taking input.
The Village hasn't posted a timeline for the rest of the process or a date for the next public meeting. It has said updates and input opportunities will appear on the master plan page. One practical note: the Village is launching a new website on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, so bookmarked pages may move this week.
Because the plan is meant to absorb existing programs, it matters what those programs are and how big they've grown.
The Ground Under the Festival
The center started as the old Anderson Winery. The Village bought it on 25 acres to keep it as open space and to mark the village's farming heritage. A later purchase of the Anderson Fields to the north brought the center to more than 40 acres. The Village's older 2035 Master Plan gives a smaller 23-acre figure for the site acquired in 2009 and 2010, so the land has clearly grown over time.
The name honors former Mayor Larry P. Abraham, and the center was dedicated in June 2018. The 2035 plan credits him with renewing agriculture in the village, with the purchase and development of the Anderson property, and with acquiring Del Norte Open Space. The new plan will be the first document written specifically for the center bearing his name.
The center organizes its work around three goals: education, research and economic development. On the research side, it trials different crop varieties, including landrace chiles, and grows them several different ways so local growers can see which methods work here. That research is why the chile roasting on Saturday means more than it would at a typical fall fair.
Read the Festival Like an Inventory
Last year's festival was held on a Sunday, October 19, 2025, from 10 am to 4 pm. The Village's Fall/Winter 2025 issue of Village Vision magazine gave a detailed recap, and almost every activity it lists traces back to a program that runs at the center the rest of the year.
| What you see at the festival | The year-round program behind it |
|---|---|
| Chile roasting, center-grown produce | Variety trials, including landrace chiles, plus market produce from the center and local farmers |
| Sheep shearing, spinning and weaving demos | The educational fiber program built around the center's churro sheep |
| Cider pressing demos | The orchard and west fields along the center's entrance road |
| Free coffee and honey | Beehives on site, plus the volunteer group ASLA Honey Badgers |
| Garlic bulb and shallot giveaways | Fall planting support for home gardeners |
| Youth Conservation Corps volunteers | A demonstration garden of waffle beds watered with ollas |
That last row is worth walking over to see. Edible New Mexico wrote about the Youth Conservation Corps garden at the center, where corn, squash and beans grow in sunken waffle beds. They're watered by olla pots filled from a rainwater cistern. The Village's magazine also lists waffle beds, intercropping and olla watering among the programs the festival money supports. That list includes Farm to Table demonstrations, beekeeping and honey production, salsa making, wool production from sheep to weaving, and lavender distillation.
The partners are part of the inventory too. Last year's festival brought together Village staff and volunteers from the Master Gardeners, the Growers' Market, YCC youth, Big Jim Farms, the NM Highland Games and the ASLA Honey Badgers. Three Sisters Kitchen ran a tasting of New Mexico heritage chile.
Some things are different this year. The 2025 festival shared its weekend with the Duke City Marathon, which passed near the center on Rio Grande, and with the Tour de Los Ranchos bike-to-farm ride. In 2026 the Tour de Los Ranchos rode six days before the festival, on Sunday, October 11. The festival itself moved to a Saturday afternoon. That leaves the morning free for the weekly Growers' Market, which runs Saturdays from 8 to 11 am through November 14.
What Last Year's Numbers Say About Demand
The Village's recap counted roughly 30 participant booths and survey responses from nearly 1,000 visitors. The event raised more than $2,000 for the center. Visitors especially liked that the event was free and family-friendly, along with the cider pressing, the shearing and weaving demos, and the garlic and shallot handouts.
Interest goes beyond one weekend. In November 2025, KRQE reported that the center's community garden, which started that year, had filled all 30 of its plots. Agricultural Program Director William Carleton told the station:
"There's been so much positive feedback with the community garden, and the idea would be to expand plots. Right now we have 30, which filled up this year."
Carleton also told KRQE that the center's workshops and events had drawn people from 46 New Mexico ZIP codes over the prior year. He said the center wanted to open its demonstration kitchen, used only for workshops until then, so people could use equipment like freeze dryers. The same report said Corrales was looking at the Los Ranchos center as a model for agriculture programs of its own. A garden program that filled every plot and a kitchen staff wanted to open to the public are both among the current programs the master plan is meant to fold in.
After the Gates Close on the 17th
The center is open year-round, Monday through Saturday, 8 am to 5 pm, and holds volunteer hours on Wednesday mornings from 9 to noon. Here's what the Village calendar shows for the rest of the season:
- Tuesday, October 27, 6 to 7:30 pm. Healers Garden: Spiritual and Magical Uses of Plants, at the center.
- Wednesday, October 28, 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Sheep to Shawl: Sweater Repair, part of the fiber series.
- Saturday, November 14. The last weekly Saturday of the Growers' Market's 34th regular season.
- December through April. The market moves to the second Saturday of each month, 10 am to noon.
- Saturday, December 12, 10 am to noon. A combined Growers & Art Market at Hartnett Park, 6718 Rio Grande Blvd NW. The market page still shows last year's December dates, so check the calendar before you go.
- Thursdays through December 17. Green-waste drop-off at 8610 Rio Grande Blvd NW, except holidays. That's handy for the leaves and spent garden beds from the festival's own planting season.
The master plan survey is open now, and the Village says progress updates and future input opportunities will be posted on the master plan page.
Kenny Perez grew up the son of a custom home builder, and he enjoys talking about what a North Valley lot can grow, hold or support, from raised beds and orchards to barns and casitas. If Saturday has you thinking about your own acreage along Rio Grande Boulevard, Ultra Real Estate would be glad to walk it with you. Schedule a free consultation.
