our afternoon at The Farm

Back in June, my husband bought a Groupon to pick your own produce at a farm nearby (ok, it was the next county over, but it was somewhat close.) When we bought the Groupon, we thought it sounded like a fun idea for fall – we could pick pumpkins, and maybe even apples. Fun, right?

This is our last free weekend for a while, so we packed the baby up right after lunch and made the 20+ mile drive to The Farm in Hendersonville. When we arrived, the sign for the “you pick” portion was covered, so I was somewhat expecting the people to just make us choose from whatever they had in their little store and we’d be on our way. I was so wrong. The Groupon customers were directed to the farm out back – and it was huge (sadly, I do not have a photo.)

I was wearing the baby, and the lady was pointing out where we could drive to get to certain vegetables. She kept saying that we had a “really far walk” from wherever we chose to park. And looking at me. She obviously doubted my babywearing/produce picking capabilities.

So on we went. We couldn’t drive all over because parts of the dirt path were pretty muddy, and we were in the Honda Fit (the world’s smallest car.) We didn’t want to get stuck. So we parked and made our way, picking vegetables along the way. I quickly learned that babywearing and picking vegetables when it’s over 80 degrees out is not a fun way to spend your Saturday afternoon.

We managed to grab a couple of red bell peppers, a ton of corn, lots of small cucumbers, about 8-10 yellow squash, a few zucchinis and we thought we may have hit our $20 limit, so we headed back to the car. As we were driving back to the storefront, we stopped so the husband could pick some okra and I could nurse the baby.

I finished tending to the baby while Kenny took everything in to be weighed. He quickly came back out – we had not reached our $20 limit, so he picked up 5 pounds of red potatoes.

Oh my gosh, y’all. We’re going to be eating vegetables for every meal for the next two weeks.

There is nothing quite like fresh vegetables is there? One of my friends runs a restaurant in California and gets all her lettuces, cabbages and sprouts from local farms like Hitchcock Farms. Eating local produce is so important.

I’m glad we went. This was by far one of our healthiest Groupons we’ve purchased. This experience has also made me start looking into farms close to our house that might offer the “pick your own” option. I love the tailgate and farmers markets, but this was something totally different! And inexpensive!

Have you ever gone to a farm to pick your own food? Do you prefer farmers markets?