This Week at Smart Markets Bristow Farmers' Market

We have peaches and the first cherry tomatoes of the year, and West on 66, your own local band, will return for their first session of the season this week. They will begin at 11:30 a.m., so plan to have lunch at the market and enjoy the music. Bring a blanket or lawn chairs or just enjoy the music as you shop.

A new BBQ vendor will join us Sunday. Operating as H&V BBQ, Hal Thomas will bring a full range of smoked meats and three sides each week. He has been coming to our Springfield market and is very popular there. Hal comes to us from Loudoun County.

We will miss your own local Absolute BBQ and remind you that the restaurant is open only on Fridays and Saturdays, which made it difficult for them to continue to manage the market gigs each week.

Tyson Farms is picking peaches, and they are delicious. Tyson will also have strawberries, lots of raspberries, and maybe some cherries, though they have lost a lot of those. Ignacio will also have raspberries and black raspberries this week, and for the first time, cherry tomatoes.

Luis and his family at Little Green Farm have returned, so we now have a nice selection of summer produce along with those greens, broccoli, cauliflower, beets, and turnips that have continued to thrive in the cool weather.

Mike Burner is bringing more Cornish game hens this week and whole chickens. Ask him about beef and when it will arrive. And he is bringing many more eggs this week to meet the growing demand.

Nyall will be back with us with those great pasties. They are treasure in the freezer for the kids or husbands (like mine) to be able to pop in the toaster oven or microwave. They can do it themselves! And they make a great summer dinner with a salad full of market veggies.

Curt Shade is finally beginning to pick from his West Viringia farm — we will all be surprised and happy to have his “above and beyond organic” veggies. The Cedar Ridge soaps he is bringing for another vendor were very popular last week; please feel free to pick them up and smell them and take home a sample from the basket.

And we know Laurel out at Holly Brook Farm has been busy at the canner again this week. I hope to have recipes using that wonderful Strawberry-Tarrgaon jam — who would have thought that would be such an interesting flavor combination? I know she is picking up some of Tyson Farms’s split cherries — can’t wait to find out what she combines with them.

See you at the market!

From the Market Master

We are happy to be participating with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) on an incentive program to boost sales at farmers’ markets across the state. The idea is to encourage you to add a market-season boost to your local economy by patronizing farmers’ markets and spending more money when you do.

VDACS has come up with a punch card that we will hand out at the market and punch every time you spend $10. You can have it punched each week to reflect the total amount of your sales. Once the card is full of punches, you may fill in your contact information on the back and drop it in the jar on the Smart Markets table and pick up another card. Every month, we will hold a drawing and give away a prize. Then at the end of the season your cards will become part of a statewide drawing that will award the winning selection with a Virginia Grown/Virginia’s Finest gift basket worth $250.

VDACS worked with the Virginia Food System Councils to develop the program to enhance its year-old $10-a-week pledge campaign to grow the local economy. Research by Virginia Cooperative Extension has shown that if each household in Virginia spent just $10 a week on locally grown agricultural products, consumers would invest an additional $1.65 billion back into the local economy each year. While our markets, like most in the area, have farmers from neighboring states, most of our farmers farm in Virginia, and we have also have several local bakers at our markets in your area. So much of what you spend really does stay in the state, unlike money spent in the grocery store, which heads to parts unknown to help someone else’s local economy.

We will have the cards at the market this weekend. Our managers and volunteers will be handing them out, and you can pick them up at the Smart Markets tent. Some of our vendors will punch them for you when you make your purchase. If necessary, you can ask the manager or volunteer to punch it for you.

This program has the immediate goal of increasing sales and bringing more money into the state’s economy, but the real-time benefit will be the enthusiasm created at Virginia’s 240 markets that should carry across the state and bring the markets more attention.

Join with us to make this work — and show up those other markets too!

Photo by Sarah Sertic