You’ve heard of U-pick pumpkin patches, apple orchards and flower fields, but it’s unlikely you’ve ever been left in charge of harvesting your own hemp. One northern California farm is inviting visitors to do just that.
For two days in late September, Sonoma Hills Farm will allow guests to select from designated rows of its latest hemp crop and harvest their own hemp plants to cure and enjoy at home..
It will be a first-of-its-kind event for the farm, which opened in the Petaluma Gap in 2020.
“The dry-farmed field came in beautiful this year,” the event page reads. “These are the best hemp plants we have grown, and this is the first time we have ever opened the rows to anyone outside the farm.”
The team at Sonoma Hills hasn’t announced the exact dates for the U-pick event yet. Interested patrons are invited to sign up for a wait list of folks who will hear first when tickets become available. Entry costs $25 per car (maximum four people per car) and $100 per plant. Visitors can purchase and pick two plants each, maximum.
Hemp comes from the same cannabis plant that marijuana does but has 0.3% or less THC in it.
Sonoma Hills Farm grows industrial hemp, with each crop sampled and tested by an independent laboratory before harvest to ensure that it meets the legal threshold to be identified as hemp.
While Sonoma Hills does grow high-THC cannabis elsewhere on its 60-acre site, those crops are never mixed with the hemp crops.
U-pick attendees will take home a fresh hemp plant—there’s a one-plant-per-car minimum—that will be raw and unprocessed. There will be no consumption of any kind on the farm during the event.
Expert team members will be on hand at the event to guide visitors on what to look for in selecting a plant and offer advice about how to cure, trim, and consume the plant.
Visit their website for more details and to join the wait list.
