A Visit To Yarnick’s Farm For Local Lettuce

As you know, I enjoy visiting with our local vegetable growers. After working with them for years, they have become close friends and I truly appreciate what they do for Eat’n Park. Their knowledge of farming continues to enlighten me every time I visit with them. 

My visit today was to Yarnick’s Farm in Indiana, PA. I’ve always admired their innovative and creative ways of extending the growing season, but for some reason I’ve overlooked their lettuce growing capabilities. Eat’n Park goes through quite a bit of lettuce, and until now, 100% of it was grown in California. That’s about to change.


Yarnick's field cover

One of the innovations that the Yarnick’s have put in place is a field cover that helps them start their crops earlier than most farms. This field cover allows them to grow four crops in the same field during one growing season. 

Yarnick's leaf lettuce

The reason for my visit today was to understand their capacity for growing lettuce. The Yarnick's are growing one acre of lettuce, which yields 1,600 heads. That’s a lot of lettuce, and luckily for us, it means that they’ll be able to supply our restaurants with their local crop! Within the next 3 weeks, this little seedling will find its home at your local Eat’n Park. I’m so excited and hope that you are too. 

In addition to the lettuce, we saw quite a bit more at Yarnick’s that I’ll tell you about in a future blog.

Until next time,
Jamie