BACK BAY — The Pungo Strawberry Festival in Virginia Beach is a destination event that should be restored to the region’s event calendar, though that seems unlikely after organizers this year called off the longtime gathering in southern Virginia Beach and said they are uncertain whether it can return.
For decades, the festival was a unique showcase that promotes our agricultural horn of plenty and the local farmers who produce it. Its economic impact – or, now, the lack thereof – should be sobering. So many of us want it back, but it’s important to remember that the popular local crop that gave the festival its name is still plentiful at farms in and around Pungo, the gateway to rural communities.
And, as I write this in mid-May, the season is in full swing.
I recently made a culinary excursion to Vaughan Farm’s Produce on Princess Anne Road in the Back Bay area to look for fresh berries, and I found a fascinating piece of Virginia Beach’s agricultural history. It would have made for a great exhibit at the Strawberry Festival.
Robert Vaughan is a ninth-generation farmer whose family has tilled and cultivated soil for centuries. I asked why farming is his career, and he told me it’s simply what he’s always done.
“We have continued to farm that land for over 300 years,” Vaughan said.
“I’m a ninth-generation farmer,” he said. “My family has been farming since 1690. Captain Vaughan brought settlers over from England and was given 1,500 acres of land in Princess Anne County. We continued to farm that for over 300 years. A land grant is registered in local court records.
“Over the years, we’ve grown a little bit of everything,” Robbie Vaughan said. “Soybeans and corn are the primary commodities in this area. We do some wheat as well.”
He and his family are part of a living agricultural legacy.
Robbie Vaughan and his wife, Jennifer, concentrate on crops and run the stand with their son, Lake, and hired help.
His brother, Billy, and his wife, Bernadette, are in the beef business. They own Coastal Cattle, and Billy Vaughan has a background as a grain farmer.
On the day I visited the produce stand, the strawberries were not quite sweet-red due to weather, but the strawberry crops have been plentiful lately, and families shopped for produce while I visited.
“If we don’t grow it, we buy locally from other farmers,” Robbie Vaughan said while dismantling a pyramid of local jams, jellies preserves and some excellent homemade chow chow.
There are three acres of strawberries, 30,000 plants, as well as 10 acres of sweet corn and tomatoes, squash and zucchini. Vaughan said without the Strawberry Festival, he and some farms may have lost close to 15 percent of potential revenue.
The berries have been plentiful this year, and lots of people have found their way to local farms to buy or picke berries.
Hopefully, with sunny skies ahead, there will soon be big red berries peeking out from under emerald-green leaves – and family-grown strawberries for a number of weeks to come.
The author is a writer and documentary filmmaker who grew up in Norfolk and lived in Virginia Beach for much of his life. He ran a production company, worked in college athletics and was curator at an art gallery in Virginia Beach for years.
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