– SUMMARY –
U-pick peaches • U-pick apples • U-pick sweet peppers • U-pick hot peppers • U-pick herbs • U-pick flowers • Open 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM every day rain or shine • Fresh donuts every day 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM (except Monday) • Shop for peaches, apples, peppers, garlic, eggplant, apricots, slushees, flowers, honey, syrup, pottery, and more • COVID: Farm stand staff are vaccinated, and current protocols include: (1) We are not requiring masks as the farm is an outdoor experience, (2) We recommend that unvaccinated people wear masks, (3) Practice social distancing under the covered porch area, (4) These protocols could change during the season • Drive slowwwwly on the farm • Thank you
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DEAR FARMKETEER: If, by some very lucky chance, you were an agricultural ethnomusicologist – the world’s top expert on theme songs of fruit farms around the globe – how would you classify our anthem?
It is called “The Horn, Er, Hen of Plenty” and it is playing now. Watch Archie the unabashed chicken smash the ivories in a stirring rendition of the official theme song of Indian Creek Farm, trumpeting the dawn of picking season proper and an abundant local harvest. (Sidelight: Imagine a jazz band braying on their “horns of plenty” – fruit flying higgledy-piggledy and ‘Creekniks dancing like peaches kaschnockered on bottom-shelf Finger Lakes apfelwein.)
U-PICK PEACHES = NOW. Yes, Farm Fans, it is opening day of peach season, the one day each year when we let the barnyard beasts host an open mic on the family heirloom instruments. It is the best peach crop ever, and there will be waves of ripening over the next 4 weeks. Remember that if you pick a peach that isn’t quite ripe, do not panic. Do not throw it away. Do not curse Baby Boomers or Generation X or Millenials for your failure to pick the best peach. Do not blame your ex-wife or her brother’s narcissistic shih tzu. Simply take responsibility for the peach you picked. Put the peach on your kitchen counter for a day or two. It will be great. Or grill it.
How to avoid heartbreaking WASTE in peach season: Don’t squeeze peaches on the tree. A thoughtless thumbprint is textbook fruit abuse. Exhibit A: Somebody was testing ripeness. They found out it was ripe. They left it on the tree. Nobody else will pick it. Peach ruined. Remember that an experienced eye is needed to judge peach ripeness by merely looking. So if you can’t squeeze it and you can’t tell by looking, what’s a Farmketeer to do? Ask us which rows are ready. Pick the peaches in those rows. Take them home even if they feel a little firm. In 2 days you’ll have delicious peaches. Stick them in a paper bag to expedite. It is up to you whether you squeeze the peaches after they are yours.
“Donut” peaches are NOT ready yet, but donut-donuts are. Donut peaches will be ready in a week or two and we will announce when ready. Meantime, you can get fresh donuts every day 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM except Monday. We’ve said it before, and it might be true: This is a revolution in small farm fryer logistics. Six days a week, the Mark 2 Donut Robot is churning out fresh fried rings of fructotic splendor – sprinkled, if you like, with cinnamon sugar. “A sprinkle of sin, sugar,” is all you have to say. Again, no donuts on Mondays, when the Mark 2 Donut Robot observes its Cyborg Sabbath. Amen.
U-PICK APPLES = PRISTINE. Pristine is a real apple – real tart. One of us here at the farm stand says, “They get better the more you eat them… just keep chewing.” So once again, a dose of resilience and positive action saves the day. Don’t decry the tartness; instead chew your way to a delightful early season apple. Some of you will swear off Honeycrisp forever. Pristines are good keepers and the first real apples of the year. And that blush! Come pick now. (You can get cold-hardy Honeycrisp trees from our nursery to plant in your yard next spring. We sell out every year so now is time to order for spring 2022.)
U-PICK SWEET PEPPERS & HOT PEPPERS. Now open! Bell peppers, frying peppers, jalapeños, serranos. More varieties ripening soon. The hots are not red yet, that comes later in the growing season.
U-PICK HERBS = Basil, parsley (flat and curly), dill, cilantro, thyme, sage, oregano. The garden is at the farm stand. This is a modest patch suitable for the Type B home chef who would pick a bag of mixed herbs for seasoning and dressing – not big enough for hordes of Type A pesto pickers.
COLD SLUSHEES = Lemon and tart-cherry. Find them swishing round and round and round in the Donut Hole.
U-PICK PEPPER PROWESS. Three cheers to Faithful Farmketeer @samanthafountain for three jars of exemplary locavoric culinarity!
A DAY AT THE ‘CREEK. Thirty-one cheers to ‘Creeknik @kathyrutherford12! Thank you for including us!
Love to y’all. Hope to see you at The ‘Creek.
Indian Creek Farm 