Cherry Picking

Karen and I took advantage of the day off yesterday to head over to Brentwood and pick some fruit at some of the many u-pick farms located in that area. The holiday weekend was the opener for many of the farms and fruit stands, which attracted people to the area yesterday in droves. We first stopped at Pomeroy Farm, where we picked up some cherries. The farm had both Bing and Rainier trees, but we mostly stuck to the Rainiers, whose fruit seemed riper and sweeter. Normally, you need to purchase a minimum of five pounds of fruit, but the friendly guy who was tallying the bill let us slip under that limit.

After our round of cherry picking, we headed out looking for some other types of fruit. We had hoped to find some u-pick strawberries, but apparently no such fruit was to be had. Cherries seemed to be the dominant fruit available for picking yesterday. After a short drive around the area, we stopped at the Farmer's Daughter Produce and Drive-Thru Coffee Bar. Though the coffee bar wasn't in operation, they had a bunch of fruit-bearing peach trees, from which we picked up a large load of sweet and delicate white peaches. The women working at this stand were really friendly. We were happy that we stopped here to support them as they were going through a bit of a rough season; with the construction at the corner of Walnut and Marsh Creek Roads, they had limited access to the orchard prior to this past weekend.

After gathering our haul of peaches, we had a quick lunch. We had actually packed for a picnic, but with the afternoon sun beating down on us, we nixed the picnic and decided to hang out in the air-conditioned car and have the sandwiches that we picked up earlier from Alamo Square Market and Deli (535 Scott Street; 415-861-7120) to go along with the peaches and cherries we had just picked. After the late lunch, we drove around for a bit, but nothing really caught our eye. We stopped at a fruit stand that advertised picked strawberries, but they had sold out just prior to our arrival. With that, we decided to conclude our excursion and head back into the city. Though we didn't get all of the fruit that we wanted, we definitely had enough to tide us over for a while. Here are a few pictures from our day:

As Karen says, eating the fruit is the best part of picking fruit:



Me, under a peach tree:



Some of the fruits of our labor: