Volante Farms

Last year, we vowed to start taking more day trips around New England and the Boston area. That goal has helped us to discover some new-to-us places like World’s End (highly recommend), Wompatuck State Park,  and of course has brought us to our favorite local wineries.

Once the boat came into the picture, we started slacking on making new discoveries, trading being explorers in for lounging in the sun. This is not a bad thing, but I also don’t want to neglect all of the amazing things to see in the Boston area. This past weekend I really felt like buying some farm-fresh produce, and after some internet searching saw that Volante Farms in Needham was having a local food festival. We found that my mother-in-law would also be interested in going, and so began our whirlwind trip around Southern Massachusetts!

Volante Farms was easy to get to, and it was bustling with activity when we arrived. Our first order of business was to check out the greenhouse plants. My mother-in-law is an avid gardener with a gorgeous array of roses and other plants in her backyard in Galway. It’s a lush, green oasis, complete with a little glass house. Since it rains so much in Ireland, many people have glass houses, similar to greenhouses, to sit in. Even when it’s pouring and cold outside, you can have a glass of wine in the glass house and enjoy the outdoors.

Volante Farms had some really stunning flowers and even offered ideas for creating window boxes. I love the pink window below; I could see it on my dream beach cottage.

In the greenhouse, we also got to see the beginnings of various types of lettuce and greens. We spend so much time in chain grocery stores; it’s nice to be back at the roots of our food.

In addition to the greenhouse, Volante Farms has a vast space in the back of the building where all sorts of deliciousness grows.

When we had enough of the greenhouse heat, we wandered inside the farm store to do some shopping and tasting at the local food festival. I loaded up on beets, which we later ate with some crumbled goat cheese. So simple, so good.

I wanted to buy a bushel of peaches, but more than that I want to go peach picking, so I held off on these.

Since it was so hot, I sought out the ice cream vendors at the food festival.

The Chilly Cow was dishing out pie and ice cream samples.

And I tasted the most refreshing grapefruit sorbet from Giovanna Gelato. Of course, my first thought was how good a little bit of gin would be in the sorbet.

I also sampled this high-fiber Oat Works drink. It was really tasty with bright flavors of mango and peach and just a hint of oat flavor. I put oats in my smoothies and enjoy it, so I knew I would like this. Oat Works drinks are perfect for someone on the go and would be really helpful in preventing the scary sugar crashes I tend to have when I miss a snack.

There were about 20 other vendors at the local food festival, but since it was quite hot, we cut our visit short and headed to Westport. We were really impressed with Volante Farms and their selection of homegrown produce, homemade products (The sweet and spicy pickles!), and other local products. It seems like they make a huge effort to sell products made by local producers in addition to their own items, and I love that community support. The prices were also really great, much of the meat, cheese, and produce cheaper than  regular store.

Do you change up your food shopping this time of year to buy more produce and local items?