Gardeners and farmers surely know rain, but it’s usually a friendlier, mutually beneficial relationship. Shelly Peay and husband Brian had plenty of it the first year they staged their popular South Coast Harvest Festival in 2023. Still, she said she doesn’t mind postponing the festival this year as a nor-easter tracks toward the coast this weekend.

“We can’t wait to celebrate,” she said Tuesday, shortly after making the decision to postpone the fourth annual festival until Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 2-4, at the Westport Fairgrounds.

“The safety of our guests, vendors, performers, volunteers and crew comes first,” she said.

This year’s festival was to have a few exciting new additions, including a nationally known lumberjack show traveling from Ohio. But luckily, Peay said the Paul Bunyon Lumberjack Show, with its competitions and demonstrations like log rolling and cutting, and more modern forestry techniques, has already agreed to come to next year’s festival.

Surely rain will not strike twice, Peay said. But if it returns next weekend, there will as always be a giant tent. And there should be plenty of activities for adults and kids alongside professionally designed garden displays, live music and entertainment, yard games, mechanical bull rides, pony rides, a petting zoo, agricultural information and more. In all, she expects close to 85 vendors, not including food vendors.

Peay and her husband started the festival four years ago and consider it a labor of love — and something needed in this increasingly cellphone- and computer-dominated world.

“It’s not about the money,” she said. “It’s about making a difference and teaching. We need things like this.”

The fair runs Friday, Oct. 2 through Sunday, Oct. 4 at the fairgrounds. Hours are 3 to 8 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.