Early Season Action at the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction

On our vacation last week, one of the essential activities I had planned was a drive down to the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction in Dayton, VA.  I learned about the place when I worked with David during my "agribusiness internship" back in 2011; we went back last summer as well.  This time I wanted to see the early season crops...but Mary suspects that we went because I wanted some pie.

They have a little snack bar out in the back where you can buy sandwiches and sodas - and pie.  There is a board where they list the varieties of the day.  It's funny how on the day we went, everything was a two word flavor.  For the record, we both chose one of my favorites - oatmeal pecan.

As far as the produce available, there was more than I expected, including early lots of tomatoes.  David said that some of the farmers use hoop houses, so they get an extended growing season that is 6 weeks earlier and 6 weeks later.

While most of what was available was flowers (there are always plenty of these), there were some flats of herbs grown from seed, and a few other varieties.  I made a little video of the call on some auctions - it's embedded below (you can see another action video on the Hawksbill Cabin YouTube channel!).



The auction's web page is here:  http://svproduceauction.com/

It's a very pleasant drive, with the last part cruising over some winding back roads through dairy farm country.  My last photo from the outing is of a barley field at one of the neighboring farms.  We were lucky with a beautiful day for our trip!