There are few things more relaxing than spending a whole day at a farm. The vegetable box that I subscribe to was having an event on their farm in Capay, CA. Their Heirloom Tomato Festival celebrates their successful tomato season, and along with tomato tasting, they had great food, bluegrass music, and a bounty of ripe, organic produce. Customers were invited to taste different varieties of heirloom tomatoes, and ultimately vote for one that the farm should plant for the next season (the winner was the Cherokee Purple Tomato).

The event started thankfully at 5pm, because although it was miserably hot when we got there, I could only imagine how unbearable it was before that. But there was an upside to the heat – when night fell, the air was as warm as it is here during the day. It was a tranquil evening, as we chatted it up with some good friends, and bus-camped in a grove of fig trees underneath a warm, starry sky.

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We headed over to Capay, CA, which is a farming community 3 hours north of the SF Bay Area. It was over 90 degrees there, so you can say our un-air-conditioned bus ride was a bit…sticky.

After a few wrong turns, we finally arrived at the farm.

We drove down rows of fig trees to find our camping spot.

It was crazy hot, so everyone sat in the shade until the sun went down.

A miniature version of their store in the Ferry Building in San Francisco.

Mike showing off his hula hooping skills. Hahaha.

Heirloom tomatoes and itty bitty watermelons.

I spotted a look-a-like to Bill Dauterive from King of the Hill

They were auctioning off a kid-sized John Deer tractor.

The farm had two goats, and a bunch of chickens.

There was a taco truck there, serving up delicious tacos using the farm’s produce.

We got three carnitas tacos.

Best. Popsicle. Ever. We both got Thai Iced Tea popsicles from Fat Face Davis. It had sweet potatoes, Thai tea, sweetened condensed milk, and cane sugar.

As it started to cool down, people moved into the vegetable rows.

We were allowed to wander anywhere on the farm, so we headed down to the canal.

All the bluegrass bands were really, really good!

Tomato Tasting

Tomato tasting was split up into four different stands.

My voting ballot.

Boxes and boxes of warm cherry tomatoes. (For some reason, tomatoes always taste better to me warm)

Here are some of the different heirloom tomatoes. The winner (and my favorite) is the Cherokee, which is the one with the purple center.

The farm was also auctioning off their heirloom tomatoes seeds. All proceeds went to sustainable agriculture.

Camping in the Fig Orchard

Here’s Boris in a row of fig trees. We were allowed to take any fruit we wanted, but they weren’t ripe yet, so we just ooohed and aaahed at them.

Our friends Amadeo and Bridget came with us.

Amadeo Donofrio!

It was hot, but we couldn’t sleep with the windows open because of the flies. There were a LOT of flies. (Probably because of the fruit)

Bridget gave me some canned apricots from her backyard. Can’t wait to try it.

Boris is happy.

Just for kicks, check out the 1970s version of this photo

We were one of three buses in our area. The orange camper van next to us was also a ’71, but in waaay nicer condition.

This is the view from the back of the bus. Pretty sweet, right?

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