Peach Picking Continues Apace; Second Swift Wave Ready Now; New This Week, Pick Your Own Eggplant & Peppers; Fresh Donuts Thursday Thru Sunday.

– FRESH CROP ALERT –

U-Picking

Peaches • Eggplant • Peppers • Apples • Flowers • Herbs

Shopping

Peaches • Eggplant • Peppers • Apples • Garlic • Scapes • Cukes • Zukes • Blueberries • Slushies • Coffee • Mugs • Honey • Lip balm • Lotion • Beeswax • Syrup • Pottery • Potted herbs • Potted fruit trees • Fresh donuts served Thursday-Sunday 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Business

See current hours on home page
See map & tips & safety in 2022 Farm Guide
Drive extra carefully on highway & farm
Thank you for being kind & nice

– FULL STORY –

DEAR FARMKETEERS: If anyone tells you, “You are the apple of my eye,” you might want to ask, “But who is the PEACH of your eye?” Because even the crackingest autumn apple can’t beat the slobbery summerfeel of a fresh peach growing on the gravelly loam of Finger Lakes Fruit Country.

YOU CAN PICK PEACHES NOW. The second wave is ready and could get picked clean by the end of the weekend. So come now! There will be several waves of ripening peaches as always, but this year the crop is much smaller than last year. We expect short flurries of picking, perhaps a couple days each on short notice. When you arrive, ask at the farmstand and we will direct you to the proper rows. As of today, we’re talking about “regular” “round” peaches, meaning the roughly spherical ones. The “flat” “donut” peaches are not ready to pick yet, the roughly toroidal ones. Please see our 2022 Farm Guide for how to pick peaches – and how not! Hint: DON’T SQUEEZE ‘EM!

DONUT PEACHES ARE NOT READY TO PICK! BUT! FRESH DONUTS ARE! Served Thursday through Sunday 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM. 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. No donuts served on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, when the Mark 2 Donut Robot observes its lavish Cyborg Sabbath. Amen.

U-PICK EGGPLANT. You can pick the Italian, Asian, and Fairytale varieties. BUT! Heads up! Please do not pick baby eggplants. Let them size up for picking in a week or two. This is especially true of the Italian variety (pictured) which are commonly used at full size for cutlets and so on. Pick the bigs!!

U-PICK SWEET PEPPERS AND HOT PEPPERS. Come browse the pepper patch. Currently ready are sweet peppers and the first of the hot peppers – jalapeños and Hungarians. More hots will be ripening in the weeks ahead.

U-PICK APPLES. First variety of the year is the famed Yellow Transparent. Of course we know what you are thinking: “Yellow” and “Transparent” make the most unappetizing fruit name since Edelborsdorfer. But nothing creates a community orchard bumrush like Yellow Transparent apples – and it’s time now. Everyone’s Siberian cousins ARE WILD ABOUT THIS APPLE. A cold-hardy variety imported in the 1800s from the far north, it ripens in July by design for the short Arctic growing season. To cut the acidity, people in the olden/colden days added SALT – take note, foodivorous foodies! – and called them salt apples. We call them Old Yellers because they’ll make you scream for their creamy apple sauce, first chance of the year. They are good stuff to be thankful for – not condemned for being way too early to the apple party.

NEW: POTTED FRUIT TREES. Plant your own orchard and send us a newsletter. We’ll come picking at your place. Please have the donuts ready by 11:00 AM sharp. Among the trees you can buy are apple heavyweights Honeycrisp, Enterprise, Liberty, Cox’s Orange Pippin, and a handful of nectarines and cherries. Fruit in the backyard is food security!

PICK YOUR OWN FLOWERS. Please be gentle with our somewhat tender plants. Zinnias, dahlias, celosia, gomphrena, snapdragons, strawflowers, ageratum, pincushion flower, verbena. Use scissors instead of ripping and tearing at them with your bare hands. Civilized ‘Creekniks!

COFFEE! First time ever, you can get a cup of coffee at the farmstand. We are brewing from hometown roaster, Ithaca Coffee Company, and you can serve yourself. No lattes, no pumpkin spice, no ice. Just a simple cuppa for your agritourism adventure. Self-serve kiosk next to the hole-in-the-wall donut shoppe. (New tumblers keep stuff hot or cold forever!)

Thanks to ‘Creeknik @hueybethany for this marvelous still life: “Afternoon snack 🍑🫐🍩 @indiancreekfarmithaca #summerfruit #farmfresh #yummy“

NEW BUS STOP = INDIAN CREEK! Take your public transportation right to your u-pick destination. TCAT has moved the bus stop to directly in front of the farm, so anyone can take the #21 from town to our doorstep. You want to avoid using the #14, which ends at the hospital requiring a walk on the highway. Be safe!

DRIVE SAFELY! We have witnessed several terrible, high-speed collisions on Route 96 by the farm in recent years. Please approach the farm carefully, exit the farm carefully, and drive slowly when you are on the farm!

A Drivers Education
REMINDER

Entering from Ithaca

Indian Creek Farm is 1/2 mile north of the Cayuga Medical Center traffic light. We are on the left, just after the Dubois Road intersection, as you come over the rise. The entrance comes up quickly.

There is no need to increase speed to 55 MPH. Stay slow to keep the cars behind you slow.

Use your left TURN SIGNAL well before the turn. We have watched people stop to turn into the farm without using their signal.

While on Farm

Please drive slowly. There is no hurry. You are on vacation while on the farm. There are kids and folks of all ages walking around the farm. Take it easy.

Exiting

Do not pull out if you can even see a car coming. Assume the car is speeding and that you will get hit.

Be patient, an opening will come.