ORANGE — The North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival has earned the reputation as a place to find garlic in unexpected places, like chocolate chip cookies and ice cream. But Greenfield resident Chris Weeks made sure to save room for 25 cloves … uncooked.

It was part of the event’s popular raw garlic-eating contest, and Weeks beat out the competition atop a bed of straw serving as a makeshift stage to win some free garlic and a bottle of Listerine mouthwash.

“I was about to leave, actually, and I heard that they were doing [the contest] and I came over here and signed up,” he said after scarfing down 10 raw cloves in the initial round and 15 in one minute to best two other finalists. Saturday marked his first visit to the festival, which is celebrating its 26th year. “It was rough up there, but now that it’s down it feels good. My mouth isn’t burning.”

Josh Habib, brother of festival co-founder Deb Habib, emceed the garlic-eating contest and said he was pleased with how smoothly it went.

“We were afraid we were going to run out of garlic, actually,” he said. “You don’t exactly know the potency of the garlic.”

Before the contest began, he told a crowd of astonished onlookers the record is 52 cloves eaten.

The idea for the festival came from a conversation between Ricky Baruc, Deb Habib’s husband, and Jim Fountain in 1998. Baruc mentioned there were not many places to sell the garlic he grew on his farm and Fountain, a woodworker, said he had the same issue with his artwork. This sparked another conversation with a group of five neighbors, each of whom contributed $20 to try to make a go of it.

The first festival was held in 1999 at the Seeds of Solidarity Farm, but that venue proved to be too small, so Dorothy Forster offered the land her father, Clifford Forster Sr., operated as a dairy farm from 1926 to 1941.

Hundreds turned out to Forster Farm at 60 Chestnut Hill Road over the weekend for the festival complete with music, food, at least 100 vendors and a sense of community. This year’s theme was “Come and Get Your Love,” after the Redbone song of the same name, and the event also featured its popular “Portal to the Future,” which promotes the benefits of renewable energy and being self-sufficient. That mission carried over to the handful of staffed trash-disposal stations with receptacles for recyclables and compostables.

“This has a been a zero-waste event for 20 years, so a lot of people just know the whole drill now and, also, they’ve seen it at other festivals and events,” said volunteer K Armington. “But this particular venue is very successful because there’s a volunteer monitoring every single station, helping to educate people.”

She mentioned that the cups that look like plastic are actually made of compostable material.

“Anything that’s sold here by the vendors is either compostable or recyclable — no trash,” she said. “The only trash is what comes in from outside, like Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s and diapers and whatever.”

“And if [guests] put it in the wrong place, we dig it out,” fellow volunteer Carrie Novak chimed in.

The Rich Earth Institute was on hand to offer workshops on topics ranging from pollinators to renewable power, and the nonprofit transported back to Brattleboro, Vermont, all the urine in the festival’s portable toilets. The nonprofit recycles human urine into fertilizer to support sustainable agriculture and protect vital water resources.

The food vendors represented different cultures and types of food, including Korean and Middle Eastern, and the craft vendors sold everything from prints to baskets to jewelry. One of the booths was operated by the Victoria Rose Scholarship Fund, which raises money for scholarships to help young dancers attend The Dance Studio in Orange in memory of Victoria Rose Gaignard, who died in a 2016 house fire at the age of 8. This is the second year the scholarship fund has had a booth to sell items at the festival.

“Last year, for the full season, we were able to fund 10 scholarships and award a graduating senior a $1,000 scholarship for college,” said volunteer Marissa Vescovi.

More information about the Victoria Rose Scholarship Fund is available at facebook.com/VictoriaRoseScholarship.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.