Here we are deep in the heart of summer festival season in Fort Wayne, and maybe you’re thinking it’s time to leave the traffic and big tent behind and find something more homespun and rural. 

Lots of little towns have festivals that celebrate their local heritage. St. Joe’s involves a lot of pickles. 

Those briny little concoctions will be front and center July 18-20 for the 28th annual Pickle Festival. St. Joe is easy to find on a lovely scenic drive up State Road 1.

Following the theme

Sechler’s Pickles has been a mainstay of St. Joe more than 100 years, and you know this is a town that knows its pickles. 

The festival features all the charming hallmarks of a small-town Indiana festival: A parade through town at 1 p.m. July 20, a car show from 4-8 p.m. July 20, food vendors, kids’ play area, live music each night (Keegan Ferrell on July 18, The Avalons on July 19, and Mason Dixon Line on July 20), a pancake breakfast at 7 a.m. July 20, and fireworks at 10 p.m. July 20. 

While there are the usual festival festivities, it’s the slate of pickle-themed competitions that set this event apart. 

Along with tours of Sechler’s Pickle Factory each day, on Thursday there will be pickle decorating, a Royal Pickle Court, and a pickle derby at 7 p.m. The following day, you can check out the pickle spoon race at 1 p.m. and a youth pickle juice contest at 4 p.m. Saturday features the adult pickle juice contest at 11 a.m. and the pickle-eating contest at 1:30 p.m. for those 18 and older. 

The pickle-eating contest will have participants racing to see who can consume 20 pickles first with prizes for first and second. These won’t be professional eaters, and there’s no dunking the pickles before consuming, so this will be a challenge and a sight to behold.

Testing fortitude

You’re probably wondering if I’ll get through this story without using any pickle puns. I am doing my best, but I must dutifully report that the organizers have dubbed the volleyball contest “The Big Dill Volleyball Tournament,” because of course they did — and you would, too. 

Breaking with the pickle theme, there will be pizza-eating contest at 2 p.m. on Friday, July 19. 

If the pickle-eating contest was a sprint, this is a marathon. Ten minutes for power-eaters to get down as many slices of cheese pizza as they can. Each will start with one 16-inch pizza, and they’ll go up from there.

Okay, but I hear you thinking, “Anybody can eat pickles, and I eat pizza all the time.” Well, you’re right. But what about the part that’s left in the jar? How much pickle juice do you think you could drink in a short period of time? How much do you think you could drink through a straw? 

If you said, “32 ounces,” you should maybe consider the pickle juice-drinking contest, because that’s the challenge contestants will face.

Take the tour

Sechler’s maintains a major operation in St. Joe, and factory tours used to be a staple of roadside attraction lists and kids’ field trips. 

These days they open the factory to visitors only for a few days a year, and those days are the Pickle Festival days. It’s a rare chance to get behind the scenes of a major food operation and well worth the visit.

The factory tour is at 5686 State Road 1. It’s available 9-11 a.m. and 12:30-3 p.m. on July 18-19 and 9 a.m.-noon on July 20. Closed-toe shoes and long sleeves are strictly required. There’s a free shuttle from the festival grounds on Saturday morning. 

There you have it: an entire story about a pickle festival with only one pickle pun, and it wasn’t my fault. I did this for you, dear reader, and it wasn’t easy. 

If I’m assigned to a chicken festival this fall, you might not be so … clucky.