Rainbow Farms

Rainbow Farms at Madison has been picking strawberries since 1983, and they were the first crop the farm ever grew.

What You Can Pick

• Strawberries - "around the first or second week of June"
• Raspberries - from early July, "one of the summer's most fleeting treats, as the season is only about two weeks long", and again in August weather permitting
• Blueberries - "start in early July and finish around mid-August"
• Tomatoes - beefsteak and Italian Roma
• Peppers - "open for picking until the first frost of the fall"

Good to Know

The farm provides quarts for picking. "If you bring your own container, it must be weighed at the market prior to picking." Prices are by the pound and the farm asks you to ring for the current one.

Picking hours differ from market hours, and the farm says so: check the Happening Now page before setting off. Closed Sundays.

On the blueberries: "Come and get them before the birds do!"

Pro tip: the two-week raspberry window is the tight one. Rainbow says the crop sometimes comes again in August, but the July fortnight is the reliable half, and a farm that closes on Sundays has effectively twelve picking days in it.