Anyhow, this week’s entry is going to be short and sweet, no pun intended. Since I gave you two (yes, two!) entries last week I figured you’d forgive me. This past weekend I went to Tanaka Farms in Irvine, CA. I found Tanaka Farms on Local Harvest.org from a link from Neat-o-rama. Let it never be said that I don’t link my sources (when I have them available).
Since it’s a week and a day from officially being summer (… oh hey, since our lovely president felt the need to change daylight savings on us (which honestly, I don’t mind a bit save for all the asinine calls I had to field at work, “is your software compatible with Daylight Savings?”) I say we petition summer to officially start on June 1st every year. Summer Solstice be damned!) it kind of felt appropriate to go to a farm to get some fresh fruit.
Tanaka Farms is currently holding their Strawberry Tours right now, which according to the website is:
- A guided Wagon Ride around the farm
- See how different fruits and vegetables grow
- Taste different fruits and vegetables
- Pick and eat your very own STRAWBERRIES
I got there just in time for their 11 AM tour Saturday morning. It cost $13. I debated whether or not to spend $13.00 on a strawberry tour that obviously would be containing a bunch of young crying kids but decided that purchasing a couple strawberries from their store would not a good blog entry make. I plunked my $13 dollars down and waited patiently on the hay bails for the tour to start.
At 11:05, they rounded us up like cattle (it is a farm after all) onto two wagons pulled by a mean looking tractor. I immediately knew that I would be uncomfortable for the next hour as the bench seats in the wagon are only about 7 inches deep and give you 2 feet of leg room that must be shared with the person sitting across from you. They also shove you in like those chickens I see on semi trucks. Did I mention that there were a lot of children? Young children? Like the oldest child was maybe 7? Yeah, I know. It was a farm, I should have expected it. I dropped a comment card with, “Adults Only tours please” on the way out.
The tour started and we learned about how a fruit is classified as anything that begins as a flower and has seeds on the inside or outside. This of course means that cucumbers and green beans are fruits, which I refuse to believe. I’m still trying to wrap my head around tomatoes being a fruit. I personally believe that anything that I put on my salad is a vegetable (except the eggs, cheese, and sunflower seeds of course). Keep in mind that I’m not into putting not-suppose-to-be-covered-in-Ranch-dressing items in my salad like mandarin oranges or pineapple. That’s just nasty.
After the whole ‘everything you thought about vegetables is wrong wrong wrong’, the tour stopped at a patch of green beans and passed them around for us all to taste. Still a bit freaked out about where all those little children hands have been that were passing me beans, I didn’t try one. The tour guide explained that since the farm was 100% organic, the beans were very safe to eat. She obviously did not see small child with jam face pick his nose earlier.
Banana trees with scarecrow.
The next stop was the onion patch. My favorite! I was actually looking forward to the onion patch as I wanted to see the screwed up faces of little children biting into a big smelly onion for the first time. HAHA! I ended up saving a couple onions for Kevin because I wanted to see the same face on him.
mmmmm....onions. (ick! yuck! gross!)
We then rolled over to the carrot patch. I couldn’t resist a yummy fresh from the ground carrot. I made sure to grab one straight from the guide before the little booger hands got to it. The carrot was very good, and I’m pleased to announce no one made the ‘What’s Up Doc?” joke.
Finally we got to the Strawberry field where we were released from wagon hell. We were allowed to eat as many strawberries as we wanted, but we couldn’t take any with us. This was really the best part of the whole tour, picking off the strawberries straight from the vine, warmed from the sun, and popping it in your mouth. I really don’t know how many strawberries I ate in those 15 minutes, but it was enough to give me a bit of a stomach ache. When we did get loaded back in the wagon, it was pretty cute to see all those kids with red stained hands and smeared strawberries across their cheeks.
At the end of the tour, they gave us each a pint of fresh strawberries to take home. Kevin and I polished those off in about 10 minutes the next day.
We did not taste the port-o-pots on this particular tour. They are all organic though.
All in all, the tour was OK. I would say it was a $10 tour, rather than $13, and their produce for sale is a bit on the pricey side, but it’s really tasty. I guess I wouldn’t mind doing it again for their July Watermelon tour. I just hope by then they have reviewed and implemented my comment card suggestion.
