Take a step back in time to the year 1900 at Howell Living History Farm with its special Saturday events. Try Canning & Pickling on Saturday, August 17; a Fiddlin’ Contest and Picket Fence Art Show on Saturday, August 24; and the 41st annual Plowing Match on Saturday, August 31. The events are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the farm, a facility of the Mercer County Park Commission, located at 70 Woodens Lane in Hopewell Township.

On August 17, learn the ins and outs of canning and help the farm staff prepare and “put up” summer produce for use in the fall and winter months. Learn by using widely available modern Mason jars or with antiques. A children’s canning wreath craft is offered from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Fine fiddling will fill the air when some of the area’s best musicians bring their talents to the farm during the annual contest sponsored by the Hunterdon Folk Exchange on August 24. In its 36th year, the contest is the largest and longest-running traditional fiddle contest in New Jersey. Visitors can expect to find fiddlers, guitarists, mandolinists, and more, perched on porches, tucked under trees, and spread out on the lawn playing traditional folk and bluegrass music and sharing the stories of their historic instruments. Guests are encouraged to bring chairs or blankets for the contest, which begins at noon on the farmhouse lawn. Homemade food, ice cream, horse-drawn wagon rides, and a closing performance featuring 30 fiddlers will highlight the day. A children’s tambourine-making craft activity from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. will complement the Fiddlin’ Contest.

The plowing event on August 31 kicks off a 10-month growing season for Howell Farm’s fall crops: wheat, rye, barley, and the old-fashioned “bearded wheat” known as spelt. Plowing is the first step in “working up” the soil into a seedbed where the fall crops will be planted. Loosening the compacted layer of soil lets in water and air, while also burying weeds and other organic material as fertilizer.

When the match is over, the farmers will join the “lands” that the contestants plowed, pack down the plowed field with a horse-drawn roller, and slice up remaining dirt clods with a harrow. The horses will drag a plank across the loose soil to flatten it before planting the field with a grain drill. Fall crops will be harvested next July using a horse-drawn reaper-binder, before they are threshed with help from a steam engine, and finally ground into flour. The children’s craft from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. is making a horsetail ribbon.

Saturday events continue through the fall, culminating with Christmas on the Farm on Saturday, December 7. For more information call 609.737.3299 or visit howellfarm.org.