The 46th Quechee Balloon Festival lifts off this Father's Day weekend -- and if you've never seen a balloon glow at dusk over the Village Green, this is the year to fix that. We're also covering the Lake Morey Summer Concert Series opening night, a free trumpet series at the Enfield Shaker Museum, and a feature on strawberry picking -- PYO fields are opening across the Valley this week.
-- The Upper Valley Connections Team
This Week
The Quechee Balloon Festival runs Friday through Sunday -- dawn launches, evening glows, 60+ craft vendors, and 46 years of Father's Day tradition. Lake Morey opens its summer concert series tonight with the Adam Ezra Group on the fairway in Fairlee. Sawtooth has live music Thursday, karaoke Friday, and the Midnight Sun Dance Party Saturday. PYO strawberry fields are opening this week at Crossroad Farm in Post Mills (Tuesday) and Edgewater Farm in Plainfield -- and Cedar Circle in East Thetford is days away.
See All Events This Week →● Farmers' Markets
As of this week, the Upper Valley has a farmers market running every day -- eight markets across seven days, including two on Saturday. Lebanon, Norwich, Hartland, Woodstock, Canaan, West Hartford, and a Monday mini market in Norwich. Full schedule, hours, and locations on our farmers markets page.
See All Farmers' Markets →🍓
This Week in the Upper Valley
The Red Season Is Opening
It happens fast. One week the strawberry plants are loaded with green nubs and white flowers, and the next you're standing in a field with stained fingers, eating every third berry before it makes it into the bucket. That week is this week. PYO fields are opening right now, and if you've been waiting for the signal -- this is it.
Crossroad Farm in Post Mills is planning to open Tuesday, June 23. They grow at their farm on West Fairlee Road, and also run a stand in Norwich on Route 5 South -- a useful detail if you want to pick up pre-picked berries closer to home first. PYO price is $5 a quart, and CSA members get two quarts free. Call ahead before you make the drive: (802) 333-4455. crossroadfarm.com
Edgewater Farm in Plainfield, NH has been a fixture for decades -- a full farm stand and kitchen alongside the PYO fields, so even if you arrive late and the best rows are picked over, you won't leave empty-handed. Prices run $7 a quart or $25 for a medium box, cash and check only. They're at 99 River Road in Plainfield, follow the signs from Route 12A. edgewaterfarm.com
Cedar Circle Farm in East Thetford -- the organic option -- is listing their fields as not yet open but expected mid-to-late June, which means any day now. It's worth calling before you go: (802) 785-4737. Cedar Circle is a nonprofit farm and education center on Route 5 in East Thetford, just south of Bradford, and worth the trip even outside strawberry season. cedarcirclefarm.org
The window is short -- usually three weeks, sometimes less if it gets hot. A warm weekend can strip a field by Monday morning. Go early, before 10am if you can, and bring a wide shallow container so the bottom berries don't bruise under the weight of everything above them.
What do you do with three pounds of strawberries? Eat the first pint plain. Freeze the rest in a single layer on a baking sheet, then transfer to a bag -- they'll keep until February, and on a gray January morning a frozen Upper Valley strawberry is a very specific kind of comfort.
The berry season runs long here if you let it. Strawberries give way to blueberries at Cedar Circle by mid-July, and then the raspberries come. Summer in the Valley has a rhythm to it, and this is one of its best weeks to tune in.
