Wine Country You-Pick and Picnicking at Sonoma Broadway Farms
On one of our recent visits to the Sonoma Valley, our favorite Wine Country destination, we discovered the newly-opened Sonoma Broadway Farms, a small organic, sustainable farm located just south of town. Tucked away on a plot of land between Broadway (hence the name) and Sonoma Creek, this six-acre farm offers a farm stand, a delightful picnic area, animals to visit, and the opportunity to go out into the field and pick your own vegetables and fruit.
Enter the farm via the driveway that it shares with the Sonoma Seventh Day Adventist Church. The farm is a cluster of weathered buildings that include a barn and a farm stand. There's a spotless picnic area to the side of the barn, with plenty of new picnic tables, each with its own patio umbrella to provide shade. It's a great place to bring your lunch and eat before or after your you-pick excursion.
The farm is just getting started for the season right now, which means that some of the you-pick options, like tomatoes, are a little limited, but give it a week or two and everything will be in full swing. Meanwhile, look for several varieties of heirloom summer squash, beets, hot and sweet peppers, kale, cucumbers, and sunflowers.
My daughter, who counts melons as one of favorite foods, was overjoyed to see that Sonoma Broadway Farms had several large heirloom melon patches. She loved picking out and picking her own Sugar Baby watermelon, which are just coming into season. We cut open right there and enjoyed it with our picnic lunch. There's nothing quite like munching on sweet ripe watermelon that you picked off the vine just moments before! We also picked a small yellow melon called a Golden Midget. We haven't tried it yet, but are planning on eating it soon.
If picking your own veggies and melons isn't your thing, then you'll find plenty of produce available in the farm stand.
There are also a few farm animals to visit, including chickens, ducks, and Danny and Scarlett, a pair of friendly goats. If you're lucky, you can even feed them. The young farmers who run Sonoma Broadway Farms are friendly, helpful, and passionate about what they do.
They'll be offering numerous family-friendly events throughout the summer and fall, including a season-opener harvest party on Sunday July 21 from 2 to 9 pm. Bring your picnic and a bottle of wine and pick produce, listen to live music, enjoy samples and water balloon fights.
Sonoma Broadway Farms will also be home to an organic pumpkin patch in October, just in time for Halloween. To learn more, visit www.sonomabroadwayfarms.com or call (415) 385-4351.
If You Go
Sonoma Broadway Farms is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm for you-pick and picnicking. It's a great place to stop during a trip to nearby TrainTown or one of the other attractions in Sonoma.
The farm is located at 20675 Broadway, between Watmaugh and Leveroni Roads. To get there, take Highway 101 to the Highway 37 exit in Novato and take 37 east until you reach the Highway 121 turnoff at Sears Point. Follow Highway 121 north and bear right at Schellville, following the signs to Sonoma and Napa. Turn left on Broadway/Highway 12 and follow it into Sonoma. Sonoma Broadway Farms will be on your right near the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
