Lori Stanley is Italian and grew up on a farm, so she knows a thing or two about fresh produce.

“When you grow up and you have your own fresh food, you become very much a connoisseur [of] choosing fresh vegetables,” she said. 

That’s why she was buying tomatoes at Mason Farms Country Market in Millcreek Tuesday. 

She gets them almost every week. She uses them in a few things like “spaghetti, sandwiches, [and] stuffed peppers,” she said. 

So, she should be able to avoid the 17% tariffs President Trump announced Monday on most tomatoes from Mexico.

“I can’t say for the long run because that could always change,” she said. 

Mason Farms’ retail manager said they don’t get a lot of tomatoes from Mexico. They had some for sale from southern Pennsylvania. The ones they grow here won’t be ready for a few more weeks.

“Mother nature up here doesn’t want to cooperate in the spring and keeps us pretty cold, so we usually have a later start,” John Mason Jr. said. 

Still, they grow a lot. Mason thinks tomatoes are their third-biggest crop.

Tomato prices probably won’t go up around here until early winter, he said. 

But the sticker shock won’t be coming from Mason Farms.

“From there, we’re strictly pretty much Christmas, Christmas trees, that kind of stuff. Then, we close in January, February, and March,” he said. 

He said the best way to save is to buy local. Picking your own tomatoes might be your best option.

“People can come out and pick those, can them, freeze them, make salsa…whatever they’re doing [with] them and save a lot of money on those winter prices.”