Growing Food and Kids

My husband, kids and I spent most of yesterday in the car on the way to the beach. After almost seven hours in the car with a four-year-old and a two-year-old (and thankfully a DVD  player), we made it to Orange Beach, Ala., where we’re soaking up sun and playing in the sand before the really big crowds start coming next week. It’s not too crowded, the weather is perfect, and the seafood is fabulous. By the time we’d been in town for 24 hours, we’d already eaten at Lulu’s at Homeport Marina(yummy shrimp po’boy for me), Tacky Jack’s (excellent blackened shrimp and my husband Lee loved the oysters), and Bubba’s Seafood House (delicious Mahi Mahi sandwich).

But before we even made it to the beach, we stopped to sample some fresh produce along the way. Obviously, as you drive further south into warmer climates, vegetables and fruits ripen earlier in the year. And if you have a garden back home with green shoots just beginning to form definable rows, as we do, you almost can’t help feeling a little awed–even envious–when you see produce already ripened and ready to eat a few hundred miles down the road. One of our favorite places to stop is Durbin Farms in Clanton, Ala., between Birmingham and Montgomery. Chilton County, where Clanton is located, is known for its peaches, and I have to say they might be better than any Georgia peach I’ve had. While spring peaches are just beginning to come in (the best ones are available beginning in late June), the market was already full of plenty of other fresh-picked produce–new potatoes, strawberries, squash, blueberries, peppers, tomatoes. “We’ll have some of those in another month,” Lee would say as he checked out each container of produce. Or, “can you believe these are already ripe down here?” in disbelief.

Durbin Farms Market

As we drove further south, we saw plenty of produce stands open for business and signs proclaiming “Silver Queen Corn,” “Peaches,” or “Green Beans.” After we passed a cornfield with stalks close to six feet high (more than three times the size of ours at home), Lee said he thought he could live down here. It’s the seafood, the beach, the laidback lifestyle he wants, or so he says. But I think it might be a little produce envy.

Are the farm stands open yet in your part of the country? For what fruits and vegetables are you impatiently waiting to ripen?

Photo credit: Durbin Farms