Are you dreaming of sinking your teeth into hot, buttery sweet corn or sun-warmed tomatoes with a flavor you can smell coming? If so, your time has arrived in Sussex County. Now on the roadside stands are piles of the kind of old-fashioned tomatoes you used to be able to pick hot off the vine and devour with the juices dripping down your chin along with stacks of the corn so sweet you could eat it raw. Despite the nearly one foot of rain that has fallen in the county since June 1, corn and tomatoes are only a few days late, local farmers say. Also in full season are blueberries, string and yellow beans, squash of all kinds, peppers, beets, baby spinach and peas. Just a few weeks away are eggplants, peaches and nectarines. The Farmer’s Market in Olde Lafayette Village just off Route 15 already is selling a bountiful harvest of tomatoes and corn, and Pochuck Valley Farms on route 517 in Vernon is expecting tomatoes and corn by Wednesday. Although the price of regular gasoline in Sussex County now is ranging from a low of $2.94 to a high of $3.49, Necia Fusco of Valley View Farms says that business is as good as usual. “The city is only an hour away from Sussex County, and people keep on shopping for the fresh summer vegetables they love,” Fusco said. “I’ve heard many people say they can’t wait to eat a fresh Jersey tomato, and it’s worth it to them to drive out here to get it. “There’s a huge awareness of the value of keeping the money in the community, and supporting local farmers, and people seem to feel a kind of sense of kindred for locally grown produce. I hear them talk about our corn’ and our tomatoes’,” Fusco added. In Vernon, Barbara Vance of Pochuck Valley Farm took a short break to sit at one of the round tables in the restaurant where she serves a country breakfast and lunch. She said that the tomato and corn harvest are just getting started in Vernon, maybe a day or two later than usual. “We see people from New York, Pennsylvania, and all over New Jersey,” Vance said, adding that with the season just getting started, it is hard to tell if the price of gas will harm the family business. “People love this place and they just keep coming, so we expect everything will be normal.” On display on the stand in front of the Pochuck Valley Farm store were woven baskets of green and yellow beans and golden and zucchini squash. Within a few days, Vance said, vegetable-hungry people will find piles of corn and tomatoes. The building that houses the store and restaurant once was the 1863 North Vernon Methodist Church, and these days appears to be a shrine to the bounty of the locality. “Our New Jersey farmers grow the best produce in the country, yet they are struggling to make ends meet and each year it is becoming harder and harder,” said Jack Rabin, Associate Director of Farm Services for Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension. That’s why Rabin’s office started a new program in June to help farmers get their produce into new retail locations, such as fine restaurants and grocery chains. The pilot began with approximately 15 chefs at restaurants in the Princeton and New Brunswick areas, several Jersey distributors and grocery chains. No Sussex County farmers are yet on the list. But it shouldn’t be long before the New Jersey Fresh sign appears in local restaurants. To generate even more local interest in Sussex County produce, the Olde Lafayette Village Farmers’ Market is sponsoring a tomato tasting in late August.