click to enlarge David McIntyre Jill and Steve Penning. Penning’s Farm Market began in 1983 as a seasonal farm stand and has since expanded into an agritourism destination with garden center, pub, grill, ice cream stand, bakery, and beer garden. To understand Warwick, you first have to look back. Waaay back. Like, 12,000-years-ago back. That’s when the glaciers receded from the Hudson Valley, leaving a carved out depression in the 104-square-mile area that currently encompasses the Town of Warwick, just a few miles north of where the border now runs between New York and New Jersey. Those low-lying areas turned into swampy bogs. Flash forward to the dawn of the previous century, when European immigrants to the Hudson Valley who had some experience farming in flooded lands drained the bogs to reveal the massive compost bounty beneath them. This is the fabled “black dirt” of Warwick, flush with nitrogen and sulfur, an agricultural jackpot like few other spots in America.