As we were arriving at Public House Produce, it was
already late in the 2012 Page County Grown Farm Tour schedule, so we figured
this would be our last stop. As it
turned out, Paw Paw’s Honey also had a display up at Public House, just like
last year. Both of these growers were on
last year’s tour – here are the short write-ups for them that I put up in my
first post about the 2012 tour:
Public House Produce: This is a family owned and operated farm
located about one mile north of Luray.
The farm’s produce is available at the Luray-Page Farmers Market and via
their CSA. Over 80 varieties of fresh
produce are offered, along with pasture based, heritage chicken and fresh farm
eggs. Public House’s goal is high-quality
produce and poultry from a local source you can trust.
Paw Paw’s Honey: This visit also takes place at Public House
Produce. Paw Paw’s Honey is a blend of
what is naturally available to the bees in Page County, so there are slight
variations in taste and color from bottle to bottle – but the honey is always
sweet and good. Paw Paw’s also raises
and sells queen bees and beeswax.
Now, I’ve learned a lot about growing honey from the
guys at Paw Paw’s. By the time we
finished some of the other activities at the farm, they’d left for the day, as
the scheduled time for touring had passed.
Turns out I don’t even have a photo of them this time. We’ll catch them next time, and in the
meantime, we’ve been enjoying their honey anyway for the last few years.
While there were plenty of summer vegetables around,
and of course, the farm animals (goats and chickens just now, although I hear
there will be pigs soon) are always a lot of fun to check out, the big deal at
this time of year is all the varieties of heirloom tomatoes they’ve been
growing at Public House. They’d set up a
tasting of almost a dozen varieties – everyone of them just as succulent and
awesome as you could ask.
I’m not a frequent tomato eater when it comes down
to it, but when I can get them fresh in the summer I definitely enjoy them – so
the tomato tasting was a perfect activity!
There were at least a dozen varieties of tomatoes on
display in the barn. I have a couple of
photos of them. It reminded me of a post
I put up last year, when I called David the “tomato king” – here’s a link:
We had a great time walking around the farm,
visiting with Butterscotch and Delilah, the Nubian goats that hail from
Khimaira Farm, and checking out the chickens – where I finally encountered
Chanticleer the Rooster…I’ve posted about him in the past before (just search
the blog for his name).
We picked up some sweet corn and a couple of pounds
of tomatoes at Public House Produce, before we called it a day. We missed the chance to stop at Wisteria,
where the folks from Patchwork Pastures were also participating – these folks
were on last year’s tour, and you can read the old post here:
Our plan was to head back to Hawksbill Cabin for a
little nap and then to get ready for the Farm Tour Dinner at the Mimslyn. I’ll have a post up about that event soon.
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