BUCKETS OF PEACHES, LOADS OF TOMATOES. Please Come Help the Huge Harvest! This Week is Peak Season for U-Pick Peaches & Tomatoes & Peppers; Also Pick First Fall Apples; Fresh Daily Donuts; It Is Time to Pick, Rain or Shine!

– SUMMARY –

U-pick peaches • U-pick tomatoes • U-pick peppers • U-pick apples • U-pick herbs • 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, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, scapes, flowers, honey, syrup, pottery, slushees, donuts, and more • COVID: Farm stand staff are vaccinated, and current protocols include: (1) We are not requiring masks since 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 • Drive slowwwly on the farm • Thank you for being here

– FULL STORY –

DEAR FARMKETEERS: What do you get when you combine stagnation and stasis? STAGNASIS. And you don’t want THAT! If you feel it coming on, we have just the thing: Peaches and Tomatoes. Buckets of them. Bushels, even. Shake up your routine and holler, “No sirree! No stagnasis for me! For I am a beloved U-Pick ‘Creeknik!” Come pick now. It really is peak season. We await the glorious ragtag rush of locavores.

U-PICK PEACHES = THE PENULTIMATE WAVE. Please come pick peaches as soon as you can. For this issue of Fresh Crop Alerts & Farm Buzz, Farmer Steve says there might be one more wave of ripe peaches coming next week. But THIS WEEK IS PEAK WEEK, and anyway since when do you trust a farmer’s extemporaneous psychic almanac? Your best chance at picking these delicious orbs of sweet southern tree juice is RIGHT NOW – rain or shine. Please note that the flat “donut” peaches are kaput, demolished, extinct. The new donut orchard proved a crowd favorite this year; you devoured those fruits like deviled eggs at a church picnic. Bravo and thank you.

U-PICK PEACHES = ASK WHICH ROWS ARE READY. When you come to the farm stand, we will direct you to the rows that are ripe now. If you pick some that aren’t quite ripe, do not panic – it is not a peach in stagnasis. It is sweetening all the time. Put it in a paper bag on your kitchen counter, and it will be ready lickety-split. You can also grill them.

U-PICK TOMATOES = GO TIME! Tomato season is here! Tons of beefsteaks, San Marzanos, Romas, cherries, and heirlooms to pick. What you find on any given day depends on who came picking before you. Look under the leaves. There are more tomatoes than you can shake a tomato stake at.

U-PICK TOMATOES = MAKIN’ GRAVY! Pictured: San Marzano tomato, a plum tomato of great repute – a prized specimen for sauce (or “paste” or even “gravy”) which, compared to Roma, has thicker flesh and fewer seeds, with flavor that is stronger, sweeter, and less acidic.

U-PICK TOMATOES = PUTTING UP! Please consider picking more tomatoes than you need fresh for the week. They are so easy to “put up” for the off-season. You can simply cook them down and freeze them in bags, for instance. Then uncork a bite of the farm well after the harvest has passed. (Note: While tomatoes and peppers are plentiful, eggplants are hosed. All gone for now.)

U-PICK APPLES = FIRST FALL VARIETIES! Ask at the stand for directions to the rows in the Dwarf Orchard. Currently open for u-pick: Sansa, Ginger Gold, Zestar, Akane. All stellar September apples, ready in August! At the stand, you can shop for St. Edmunds Russet, Ginger Gold, Akane, Jefferies, Zestar. New varieties will ripen each week from now through October.

U-PICK PEPPERS = LOADS! Bell peppers, frying peppers, jalapeños, serranos, and more varieties ripening each week. You just have to come explore the U-pick patch.

FRESH DONUTS = Every day 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM except Monday. We’ve said it before, and it might be true: making fresh donuts six days a week is a revolution in small farm fryer logistics. Yes, six days a week, the Mark 2 Donut Robot churns 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. No donuts on Mondays, when the Mark 2 Donut Robot observes its Cyborg Sabbath. Amen.

U-PICK HERBS = OPEN! 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.