On Saturday, class visited Fifer’s Orchard in Wyoming, DE. We were told that the biggest money makers are tomatoes, followed by strawberries, sweet corn, and pumpkins. We took a nice tour to 2 fields, one of which was growing strawberries, and the farmers were experimenting with laying out a white plastic tarp instead of a black one, to see if it will lengthen the harvesting “season.” We also saw the Orchard’s new greenhouses and heard about the future experimenting with crops. One thing we learned about Fifer’s is that none of their crops are organically grown. Organic growing is very hard to do on the east coast to begin with because of the humidity, then with Fifer’s scale added in, it’s just not attainable. We were told that the 2 biggest challenges facing Fifer’s future is government regulations, like filling out too many forms, and finding labor to pick plants (there is a whole complicated process to this). We finished the trip with a stop at the gift shop, where I got a lot of apple cider, 6 gallons to be exact, for everyone on my dorm floor.