When my sister and I were young, our parents took us out to U-Pick farms pretty often (at least in my memory it was often). We regularly picked strawberries and raspberries in the summer and sometimes branched out to blueberries, pumpkins, and apples. I loved it and think of those excursions as a key part of my growing-up experience. When Rocky came into the picture, I hauled him out to the U-Pick farms almost immediately. Naturally, once The Squidd came along, I was eager to share this experience with him, too.
Here in the Garden City, I thought we'd have ample opportunities to take The Squidd out to the local farms to pick produce, but it seems that because it is the Garden City, U-Pick isn't particularly popular. Most folks have their own mature fruit and vegetable gardens in their own backyards (or the backyards of relatives) and literally reap the fruits of their labor right at home.
As we are the proud renters of a townhouse with a miniscule back patio, a home garden isn't really feasible for us. So I've been methodically looking for places we can go to have this harvesting experience. Today, we went for apples, thanks to the lovely generosity of some local organic apple growers we met at our farmers' market. You see, there aren't places in the Canterbury region to pick your own apples, so on Saturday, I mustered a little boldness and asked our favorite apple vendor if there was any way we could bring The Squidd by their farm to pick a few apples, just to give him the experience. The farmer immediately responded that we'd be more than welcome to drop by, so today we took her up on her offer.
The morning dawned clear and cold--a perfect fall day--and as we drove, the weather steadily warmed. When we arrived at the orchard, it was high 50s, perfect blue skies, and sunny. The couple who grow the apples greeted us, showed us around the orchard, explained a bit about their work, and left us to it. They harvested most of their fruit a few weeks ago to beat the first frost, but a fair number of apples remained on the trees.
The Squidd had a blast picking the small apples ("kid-sized," he said) and eating them whole, seeds and all. After we finished picking, we were invited back to the farmers' house, where they served us tea and carrot cake and engaged us in a nice long chat about a variety of things, from Harley motorcycles to the geology of the local area (of course). And when we left, they refused any payment for the many kilos of Braeburn, Granny Smith, and New Zealand Rose apples we picked (and the additional kilos of Cameo apples they pressed on us as "must try" variety). They were so generous and kind, and The Squidd had a day he won't soon forget. Hear, hear for local farmers!
