Hot Days at the Farmers' Markets

This Week at our George Mason University, Prince William Campus Market
Thursday 11:30am–1:30pm
Occoquan Parking Lot (corner of University Blvd. and Freedom Center Blvd.)
Map

This week the market will close an hour early, at 1:30pm, due to the forecast for extreme heat. You can drive over to buy lunch or shop and park for free in the Occoquan lot while you shop.

Uncle Fred’s BBQ is back after an accident knocked out his smoker and his truck. He will have a full complement of smoked goodness this week. Mabelle Rillioz with Ma Chef brings a great assortment of authentic Argentine empanadas and pastries, and Personal Fowl Farm brings fresh whole chickens and beginning this week a half-chicken dinner with potato salad and watermelon.

Our other new vendor is our favorite Ukrainian seafood purveyor, Virginia Crabs, who brings crab cakes and tilapia sandwiches to this market — watch for something new each week! If you have a hankerin’ for steamed crabs, he also brings those to our other markets throughout the week. And they are great! For a Ukrainian he has his Maryland crab-cooking down. Igor is buying from a fisherman/crabber just as he pulls into the dock in Annapolis, so you can’t get much fresher than that.

Tyson Farms is now bringing all of those fabulous West Virginia fruits, including the best peaches and plums around and a great selection of vegetables too. Great Harvest Bread is with us still, and we are happy to have Betty’s Chips and Salsa — wait till you try her homemade chips and black bean dip. Betty is building a new kitchen which will also enable her to bring her famous enchilada meals, gazpacho and guacamole very soon.

We will continue to add vendors as we get closer to the return of students and faculty to campus, and we will keep you informed.

From the Market Master

Who let the dogs out? Again already? Those proverbial dog days are becoming a little too common this season, and it sure is tough on the farmers’ markets. Who wants to pile their children in a hot car in plastic car seats and then into plastic strollers to meet this kind of day? Check your sources for the markets you attend to make sure they will be open; Smart Markets may decide to close early on one or two days and as those decisions are made, we will post them on our website and Facebook pages, send it out to weekly newsletter lists, and tweet about it too.

Making a weather-related decision about the market is always a tough call, and we do have a stated weather policy. We always encourage shoppers to check our website before heading out the door if they have doubts. We do not operate “rain or shine” with no exceptions — there are too many risks to shoppers and vendors alike in being out there in the wide open spaces during bad weather. My vendors know that I am only going to call off a market if things look pretty dangerous for us — those of us who will be exposed for up to five hours or longer.

That means I sometimes err on the side of caution but not often. Last Wednesday in Reston, most of us waited out two large and violent thunderstorms because our radar watchers back at home and in offices were telling us that the storms would pass quickly and that would be the end for the afternoon. Still, we left it up to the vendors, and some left in the midst of the storms. But those who stayed saw the sun come out for the rest of the afternoon at about 3:30pm and hustled to get set up, and we had a good market thanks to all of you. But it could very easily have been too much hard rain and lightening for too long — and we would have scattered then without setting up at all. And at 3:30pm it would have been on our website that we had.

We want you to take care too as you decide whether to come support us — we will be very grateful as always for the business, even more so this week in the heat. We will understand if you decide to move through quickly and not linger. Watch this space too — we will post on Patch if we make any changes as the heat rises toward the end of the week. We almost had T-shirts made last summer for the Oakton market after we “survived” a 4-degree market in January and then a 104-degree market in July. We may have to reconsider that this year!

See you at the market!

Photo by Rob Stinnett