We spent a lovely summer morning out exploring two farms in Chesapeake. The first was Bergey's Breadbasket. Bergey's started out as a dairy farm over 75 years ago. They started off with a horse and buggy and have grown to a bakery, deli, and creamery. All baked goods are hand made daily in house from scratch. They have breads, cookies, pies, but are most famous for their cinnamon rolls. They seriously looked delicious. We chose to have ice cream for breakfast because that's apparently the type of parent that I am. (To be fair, my father allowed me to have ice cream for breakfast on more than one occasion and I turned out okay!) Their ice cream is made fresh in their store too.
On the back of the property is a big farm where they grow all types of produce. In the spring they offer potatoes, spinach, kale, carrots, lettuce, and asparagus. In summer they grow tomatoes, corn, blueberries, and garlic. Fall brings pumpkins, butternut squash, spinach, kale, collards, and carrots. In the winter they grow kale, collards, carrots, and spinach. In spring, summer, and fall they also organically grow and sell fresh-cut flowers. From June to October you can even pick your own sunflowers.
Another great feature is the animals that they have. All around the farm is a petting zoo. The entrance is donation-based and there are little boxes all around the farm for you to drop your donation into. We saw pigs, goats, turtles, snakes, lizards, fish, rabbits, sheep, cows, horses, and a donkey. Many of the animals you can touch or even pick up. There were really cute tractors to ride for little ones and a huge sand pit with lots of trucks for digging.
We spent most of the morning here and headed back inside for lunch. They offer really reasonably priced kids' meals and sandwiches for adults. Neil and I got sandwiches and R got the peanut butter and jelly meal. You could tell that the bread was made fresh and the tomatoes in particular were great. The jelly wasn't overly sweet and you could tell it wasn't full of chemicals and preservatives. Overall, we had a really great morning and can't wait to go back. They are currently growing their corn maze to get ready for the fall season and also have a seasonal Easter egg hunt in memory of Rose Bergey.
Right next door is Mount Pleasant Farms which has a small store with fresh produce, Oberweis milk, raw local honey, farm fresh eggs, and a CSA program. We found some dilly beans in there which are super hard to find, but Neil loves. They also have baked goods and jam. Strawberries, peaches, apples, nectarines, pumpkins, and Christmas trees are available seasonally and there are lots of U-pick options where kids and adults can fill their own buckets.
We spent until R's nap time between the two farms, so you could make a day out of it. They were a pleasant hidden surprise that we will come back to next summer.... or maybe sooner. As I write this, Neil told me the sandwich was one of the best he has had in a while, and he can't wait to go back soon.
