This Week at the Smart Markets Lorton Farmers' Market

This Week at the Smart Markets Lorton Farmers' Market
Thursday 3:30–7 p.m.
Workhouse Arts Center
9601 Ox Rd.
Lorton, VA 22079
Map

New Vendors This Week

We are welcoming a new weekly participant who will not be coming to sell but to provide a service to our customers. Silverbrook Nursery and Landscaping will come every week to answer your seasonal questions about your lawn and garden plans and plantings. They will also have helpful handouts and advice about landscaping your property.

Vendors Absent This Week

We are sorry to say that we are losing Shenandoah Seasonal Farm -- at least for a while. They have just learned that their landlord will not be renewing their lease to farm on the property, so Ben needs to devote whatever time is necessary to locating a new site for their farm next season. If they can get that settled soon, we may see them back later in the fall. We certainly wish them well and hope they find something quickly.

On the Way In and Out

This is probably the last week for peaches, but the pears and apples will soon take over Chester’s stall and you won’t even miss the peaches. Chester already has the brown and yellow Asian pears and Honeycrisp, Gala, and Fuji apples, with other varieties coming in almost weekly for the next month.

Russ at Wicked Oak will have more pork chops and sausage soon, maybe this week, and now he will be one of only two egg suppliers at the market. Steven Stoltzfus brings certified organic eggs, and Russ brings eggs from free-range chickens who are as pure and natural as they can be without being certified organic.

You will be seeing more products from Trickling Springs this week, and if you have seen something in the brochure or on their website, let Steven or Tricia know that you would like to see it at the market. They need your feedback in order to know what to bring. A personal note: Nothing is quite so good as a slice of Amish fruit pie with Trickling Springs ice cream on the side.

A reminder for the moms out there -- Terri at the Comfort Mix tent is making good and good-for-you graham crackers that make a wonderful addition to a child’s lunchbox, and her s’mores kits will help you corral the kids around any open flame -- the patio fire pit or the fireplace in the family room.

I know it is easy to take them for granted -- you see their bakery just up the road -- but stop by Great Harvest to see what they are bringing and sampling. They bring all of their newest items to market for sampling and feedback; take advantage of the opportunity to let them know what you like best.

This Week at the Market

Just a reminder to think outside the lunchbox this year. If you have been buying local all summer, there is no need to back off that commitment now. You can fill a lunchbox with great choices from the market.

And how about a plan to think soup for fall and winter? We have cold soup recipes at our table now and will add some hot soups that can be packed for lunch. Some can even be drunk from a thermos. With a small sandwich, veggies and hummus, or another dip you make yourself, you can create a healthy lunch that only needs an apple or applesauce to round it out.

From the Market Master

Dear Shopper,

I have recently read a book by journalist Barry Estabrook titled Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit. The book expands on a 2009 story in Gourmet by Estabrook that revealed that tomatoes being grown in this country by corporate farms were essentially being picked by slave labor.

The book, published last year, details numerous offenses by the tomato industry, including how they have genetically altered tomatoes to accommodate shipping needs. Estabrook also discusses how tomatoes are grown and picked for shipping and what happens to them on the way to their destinations. It is more than anyone who buys tomatoes outside of a farmers’ market would want to know. And it made me angry, and pessimistic about whether the situation will improve. The details are appalling. Estabrook makes it clear that enforcement of existing laws and regulations to prevent the abuses is not working and probably never will.

The publication of the book brought additional attention to the situation in Florida, and more levels of enforcement were mobilized. But it seems now that the effort that really produced results was a grass-roots partnership between the workers themselves and their outraged supporters in Florida and elsewhere. Just this past Sunday, an op-ed in The Washington Post cited some hope of seeing an end to these horrible living and working conditions. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

I am not going to quote from the articles or the book -- you can read as much as you want by clicking on the links above. And within the Gourmet article, you will find other links that may inspire you, but will also give you pause when you shop next at the grocery store. If big-time growers can get away with this kind of operation in the U.S., just imagine how easy it is for them to undermine laws in other countries.

This story also gives us one more reason to ponder the dynamic of organic versus local. Can you trust that a tomato or a peach or a cantaloupe picked on an “organic” farm in Mexico is even really grown organically? Who is watching those farm operations? And what kind of power do the workers have to enforce the laws of their land or the requirements of an American distributor?

Please read these two pieces and pick up the book if you want to know more -- it will make you cringe. It will also make it hard for you to buy a winter tomato in the grocery store this December.

See you at the market!