This weekend my family and I happened upon this family-owned farm in New Jersey called Two Lazy Farmers. Catchy name huh? This mom and pop farm where you get off the highway and make some turns onto a long winding road until you see a small produce stand on the side of the road. You can drive off to the side and park on the grass to find rows and rows of produce as far as your eyes can see! It is truly a green Wonderland and it seems surreal that you can find a small farm just about an hour outside of the city.
They have seasonal fruit and vegetables nearly year-round, and our selection during our visit included but wasn’t limited to: watermelon, cucumber, heirloom tomato, cherry tomato, a variety of chili peppers, bell pepper, squash (you can pick the squash blossoms too if you’re making a fancy meal!), eggplant, flat bean, long bean, collard greens, bitter melon, other melons and striped squash, fresh basil, okra, just to name a handful…
It’s a whole different experience to hand-pick your own produce from the fields compared to driving to your grocery store and getting pre-packaged produce or only the “pretty” produce. Did you know that usually 25% of crop foods are immediately thrown away or given to farm animals as feed before they even hit the shelves because they don’t meet the aesthetic expectations of vendors or consumers?
By going straight to the farms, you get to pick your own produce and intentionally pick those fruit and vegetables that may have a slight imperfection but otherwise is perfectly good to eat! You’ll be doing the farmers and the environment a favor by reducing food waste 🙂
See a similar post on supporting farmers’ markets here!
A Healthy Blueprint 