Holy Vegetables, Batman

About a month ago my mom sent me an email with a flyer attached for Miller Farms. It's a working family farm north of Denver that offers a whole bunch of family friendly activities like a hay ride, petting zoo, giant slide, vegetable harvest, tractor racing, etc. We decided to go yesterday on Kraig's day off.

It costs $15 per person. Children 3 and under are Free. I was a little hesitant to pay $30 to go to a petting zoo, but decided that it would be ok--sometimes I have to remind myself it's not about the money, it's about the experience.

Holy cow! (no pun intended) This was the first thing we saw when we pulled up:

"Ooo! That's scary!" --Andy, about Mater's teeth

The look on Andy's face and excitement in his little body when he saw Lightening McQueen and Mater was worth the hour's drive up to the farm.

The parking lot was pretty empty when we arrived. We paid our $30 to the owner and went inside to play.

First thing was the dirt hill. Kraig and I fought over "King of the Hill." The boys didn't quite make it to the top.

Next was the tractor racing. Andy was actually big enough to peddle his own around the track. It was fantastic! Thank goodness we've been training for this tractor race with all those bike rides we go on :)

While we were racing one of the workers ambled over to the fence of the track and asked us, in broken english, if we wanted to get started on the hayride. Um, ok. We hopped on the trailer full of bales of hay and started off. Javier, our driver, told us that we were each allowed to pick 2 bags of produce at each stop. That meant that we could potentially get 8 bags of produce at each stop. First was the corn:

Then we did Indian corn:

Beets, potatoes (red and purple),

tomatoes, peppers (all sorts from sweet to douse-me-with-water hot), egg plant, onions (white, yellow, and red), green beans, carrots, cabbage, pumpkins, squash (butternut and acorn), and leeks.

Bag after bag kept piling up on the trailer. It was pretty hard to comprehend--all this wonderful, fresh, organic produce. Javier was out in the fields helping us harvest at each stop. He showed us where the best peppers were, reminded me to not forget the eggplant, encouraged us to stop for a few heads of cabbage, sorted out the onions and taught me how to find the best ones, and picked a bag of green beans for us. He also didn't put a time limit on our stops. Usually on the weekend (when there are hundreds of people), the drivers only allow 20 minutes at each field for harvesting. We were at one stop alone for over 45 minutes. In total, we were harvesting with Javier for almost 4 hours. At the end he even drove the trailer to the parking lot so we could load it in our van. Needless to say we gave him a very good tip. This was all we came home with:

I knew we had saved a lot of money by going and harvesting. When we got home (after bathing the kids and putting them in bed--it was a long, fun day for them too!) we weighed and counted the produce. Then I ran to King Soopers to find out the current retail prices of each item we'd harvested. This is what we came up with (I made a spreadsheet in Excel but can't import it to blogger. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. This table is pretty crude):

Produce_____ Each__ Pounds __Price/each __Price/lb __$
Pumpkins ______4 ______43 _________________ $0.25 ___$10.75
Corn _________35 _______________$0.33 ______________$11.55
Potatoes, Red __________46.5 _________________$1.39 ___$64.64
Potatoes, Purple ________42 __________________$2.99 ___$125.58
Peppers, assorted _______16.5 _____________________________
Leeks ________________9 __________________$3.49 ____$31.41
Cabbage _______8 ____4.5 __________________$0.67 ____$3.02
Beans, Green/yellow ____5.5 __________________$1.50 ____$8.25
Carrots ______________10.5 _________________$1.29 ___$13.55
Squash, Butternut _3 ____9.5 __________________$1.00 ___$9.50
Squash, Acorn ____5____13.5 __________________$1.00 ___$13.50
Eggplant ________5____2.5 ________$1.99 ______________$9.95
Tomatoes _______4 _________________________$1.49 ____$5.96
Onions, Yellow ________24.5 __________________$0.88 ____$21.56
Onions, Red ___________15.5 __________________$1.49 ___$23.10
Onions, White _________20 ___________________$1.49 ____$29.80
Beets _________16 ____4.5 ______$0.66 ________________$10.56
Indian Corn _____24 ____13 _______$0.75 _______________$18.00
____________________________________subtotal $410.66
______________________________paid for entrance and tip $50.00
_______________________________TOTAL SAVED $360.66

This isn't an actual true reflection of what we really saved for a few reasons:

1. Everything we picked was organic. I could only get the organic retail price on a few items, so mostly the price/lb is a little less than the organic price would have been.


2. Peppers. We picked such an assortment of peppers it would have been ridiculous to sort them out by kind and weigh each bunch. FYI--the pepper price/lb ranged between $1/lb to $8/lb.

We will definitely be going again. Here are the things we'll do the same next time:

1. Wear wide brim hats. I'm so glad I didn't wear my visor. I would have gotten so fried. Kraig put them in the car as a joke, but it was a blessing to have them.


2. Long pants and old shoes. We all got SO dirty. Kraig was in chacos and shorts, but didn't complain (he's good like that)
3. Go on a weekday. They told us weekends are crazy. We definitely benefited because we were the only ones there. And I didn't worry about the kids. The wandered up and down the rows of veggies just having fun and exploring. I didn't have to worry about some wacko stealing them away. It was just us and maybe two or three others from another hay ride.


4. Make friends with the tractor driver. The only english Javier knew were the names of the vegetables. He and Kraig (and Javier's cousin, at one point) had lots of wonderful converstaions while they were harvesting. I think they loved having someone new to talk with.


5. Bring lots of ice-cold water and sunscreen. Kraig was inspired before we left.

This I'll do differently next time:

1. Go earlier in the day. We didn't get there until almost 1pm (because we got a little lost on those rural roads...). We planned on petting the animals, doing the corn maze, and playing around some more after the harvest, but by the time we were all done everything else was all closed up.


2. Go multiple times during the season. They do a spring harvest too. I'd love to see what's popping up during that time.


3. Don't bring the stroller. We didn't need it.


4. Bring friends!!!

So it was totally worth it. I would recommend it to anyone, even if they didn't get to come away with as much produce as we did. It was so much fun for the whole family!