Peak Season

It's the Farmers Who Make Some Markets Worth a Special Trip

The local 'lopes are coming in, the corn has arrived, the peaches are darn near perfect. If ever there were a time to celebrate the bounty of the mid-Atlantic region, and the farmers who bring it to our urban and suburban neighborhoods, it's now.

And so we do, thousands of us. We get up on Saturday at the C of D (that's crack of dawn) for the big market in the heart of Alexandria, sign up for the Arlington Farmers Market weekly e-mail so we won't miss when the garlic shows up (now!), give up our Sunday sleep-in to hit the Dupont Circle FreshFarm food extravaganza.

Some of the 87 farmers markets and stands that we named in our annual listing back in late April are producer-only, meaning everything is grown by the farmers who come to market, while other markets permit importing of such things as bananas to give customers the convenience of one-stop shopping. Some markets boast 100 vendors; others are one lone truck from, say, a diversified farm in Pennsylvania. For the most part, people shop at the farmers market that's convenient to their home or work -- in fact, that's the point. But some markets are, as the Michelin Guides say, "worth the trip." And not just for what's for sale (see Foraging, on Page 5), but for the vendors themselves. Farmers are an idiosyncratic bunch -- they'd almost have to be in order to make their way in the world by applying heavy doses of ferrous oxide (in the form of a hoe) to Mother Earth. Their crustiness can compete with their enthusiasm for their trade to produce an interesting experience for their customers.

Take James and Mary Van der Woude Hill of Van der Woude Hill Farm in Catlett, Va., who sell at the producer-only Archwood Green Barns Farmers Market in The Plains in Fauquier County. The Hills sell eggs and honey from their 10 hives, also wool taken from the Cotswold sheep and Nubian goats they raise. Those goats produce goat cheese as well, but that prize is not sold. Rather, after a lengthy and complicated dust-up with state agriculture officials, it is given out to customers -- a kind of gift with purchase, for those familiar with cosmetics counters. The Hills also sell goat herd shares to those who want a steady supply of goat milk and cheese.

Stan Edmister of Midtrees Farm also sells out of Archwood Green Barns, but at the moment not the " 'shrooms," as he calls them, that earned him the nickname "Mushroom Guy." While he awaits guidance from the state ag officials, he is concentrating on offering both grass-fed and grain-finished Angus beef. "My cattle are not an industrial product," he said in an e-mail. "They eat grass and clover, drink my well water and get fat. It's the old way of raising livestock from the land." He sells them, he says, "in a vain attempt to generate enough funds to pay my property tax."

Archwood Green Barns isn't all niche products: Chester Hess, of C. Hess Orchard & Produce of Martinsburg, W.Va., has plenty of corn, heirloom tomatoes, squash, potatoes, peaches and melons to keep the crowds happy.

Up at the Takoma Park Farmers Market, Jerry Worrell of Ferry Landing Farm and Apiary in Dunkirk sells honey and beeswax candles. Which is a good thing, because his farm-fresh eggs are likely to be sold out in the first hour of the day. Worrell also sells his wares at the market in Riverdale Park.

Eggs of a different dimension altogether are what Steve Morgan of Mechanicsville sells at the Charlotte Hall Farmers Market & Auction in St. Mary's County. He deals in quail and their tiny eggs. Morgan didn't want to be photographed but some of his Amish neighbors in Mechanicsville were more sanguine, including Henry Stoltzfus, who is among the farmers who have set up at the North St. Mary's County Farmers Market in the nearby Charlotte Hall library parking lot. His wares are a good bit less exotic -- apple pies, eggs and fresh corn, plus other produce.

Some farmers spread out, the better to sell their wares. Lana and Joseph Edelen of the 96-acre Homestead Farm in Faulkner, in Charles County, raise and sell regular produce (if one can call free-range blue-green eggs from Araucana hens "regular"), but they also have a subspecialty -- ethnic eggplants, including Ichiban, a slender purple variety; garden egg, originally from Africa; neon, a French version; and Kermit Thai. The Edelens sell their products at the Bowie Farmers Market, at the Howard County Farmers Market at Mount Pisgah, in Gaithersburg, Kentlands, Falls Church and La Plata.

Kathy Audia of Audia Farms has her own specialty she's experimenting with -- three kinds of currants (red, black and white), plus gooseberries and perhaps enough figs to bring to Takoma Park's Sunday market next year.

As befits a farmers market catering to urban sophisticates, the 10-year-old Dupont Circle FreshFarm Market specializes in the unusual, such as baby artichokes from Sunnyside Farm & Orchard and kiwis and figs at Next Step Produce. In addition to soft-shell crabs and catfish, Buster's Seafood has, on occasion, live eels.

At Dupont, Cibola Farms offers buffalo, goat, pork, chicken and rabbit. For the past six years, Paul Stephan, co-owner of Blue Ridge Dairy, has sold fresh mozzarella cheese. This year he added a tangy, yogurt-like product he calls Yo-Fresh. "Now it's our biggest seller," he says.

Says market president and co-founder Ann Harvey Yonkers: "It's our geographic diversity that makes us unique. Our farmers come, not only from Maryland and Virginia, but from West Virginia and Pennsylvania. That gives us a longer season for a lot of vegetables."

For other markets, the source of richness is closer to home. Says Joseph Edelen of Homestead Farm: "The customers make Howard County market special."

Frequent contributor David Hagedorn and staff writers Bonnie S. Benwick, Judith M. Havemann, Marcia Kramer and Walter Nicholls contributed to this report.

For locations and hours of operation of local farmers markets, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/food.