Just like clockwork, peach harvest is here
The June 26 Historic Lewes Farmers Market at Crooked Hammock Brewery on Kings Highway featured one of the most popular fruits sold in Sussex County – the debut of Bennett Orchards peaches.
Long lines started to form as soon as the market opened and will continue at other local markets as more farmers bring peaches to sell. On the same road near Dagsboro is Parsons Farms, which also grows blueberries and peaches.
For decades in the late 1800s and into the 1900s, Sussex County was known as the peach capital. An entire industry grew up around the crop, and there were more than 800,000 peach trees in the county.
The county's peach crop was wiped out near the turn of the 20th century by the peach yellows virus. Nearly every orchard was destroyed, and farmers moved on to other crops, including strawberries.
The first peaches on the Bennett farm were planted in 1980. The orchard is operated by brothers Henry and Hail Bennett, and their father Jim. Both brothers, sixth-generation farmers, are Indian River High School graduates who returned to the family farm after graduating from college.
It was Hail who planted the farm's first acres of you-pick blueberries in 2011, and it was Henry who started selling their fruit at farmers markets.
The farmhouse on the property dates back to the 1850s, when the area was known as Baltimore Mills, and included a water-powered grist mill and sawmill. The Bennetts started farming the land in 1867, and for decades, they grew grain and raised chickens.
