Fresh produce finding a market in Woodlawn

The Baltimore Sun

The harvest was spread across folding tables - piles of potatoes, buckets of tender peaches, swollen watermelons, heaps of glossy lettuce and sweet corn.

But at the Woodlawn Farmers' Market, Karen Smith was most pleased to find the carrots that her 5-year-old son "will actually eat."

Until the market opened this month across from Social Security Administration headquarters, the boy had only tasted the prewashed, precut carrots from plastic packages. The leafy green tops were a novelty.

It's the dirt smudges on the potatoes, the sweet scent of the tomatoes and the farmers standing next to their banged-up pickup trucks that somehow bring life to the market, patrons say.

"I love this - the freshness," said Florence Cowans, a 64-year-old retired city teacher, at the "grand opening" of the market last week. "I like being outdoors, supporting the local farmers. I like seeing people."

After a hiatus of several years, the revived weekly farmers' market in Woodlawn is being held Thursdays in front of a bowling alley and across from the Social Security complex, its former location.

A few miles away, in Randallstown, another farmers' market has been established - also on Thursdays - at the Liberty Senior Center.

For the western Baltimore County communities, a summer farmers' market is just the kind of old-fashioned, pleasant attraction that they've been without for too long.

"It's great for the community. They don't have to go across town anymore to one of the other farmers' markets," said Denise Murphy, executive director of the Liberty Road Business Association. "It's a first for Randallstown."

With the two additions, Baltimore County now has eight farmers' markets, according to the state Department of Agriculture. The others are in Catonsville, Dundalk, Towson, White Marsh, Pikesville and Essex.

The new markets started small, with just a few farmers selling their produce, on July 12. But business has been swift, organizers say. And they expect the markets will gain patrons - and possibly vendors - as word about them spreads.

Jane Elseroad of Hideaway Farm in Reisterstown said green tomatoes have been especially popular.

"Everyone has a certain way they like to fix them," she said, during a brief lull in business. "I ask them about their recipes, but they say, 'I can't tell you my secret.'"

For years, local farmers drove trucks laden with fruit and vegetables each week to the Social Security Administration headquarters.

"I was really upset when they stopped coming," said Smith, a Social Security Administration economist from Odenton.

In addition to the fresh carrots, she bought three different types of lettuce, proclaiming, "It's salad all week."

Some county officials and community leaders blamed the Sept. 11 terrorists for robbing Woodlawn of its fresh produce.

They mistakenly believed that the heightened security measures had forced the farmers from the sprawling federal government property. But the weekly events that were held on a parking lot from the summer of 1998 through October 2002 were never open to the public, said Mark Hinkle, a Social Security Administration spokesman.

Farmers' market organizers tried, for one season, to sell their produce in the parking of a nearby church, said Bill Obriecht, owner of the Calico Cat crafts gallery and treasurer of the Woodlawn Business Association.

"But that space was limited. And parking was difficult," said Obriecht.

The idea to revive the market came up this year at a Woodlawn Business Association meeting, he said. The AMF Bowling alley owners agreed to allow the market to use the parking lot there, said Delores Douglas, the "market master" in charge of the coordinating the weekly event.

Just across the road from the SSA headquarters, where more than 11,000 government employees work, the market is also convenient for the nearly 3,000 employees of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, also headquartered on Security Boulevard.

The first week, the farmers' market began at the same time as a fire drill at the Social Security Administration, so there were plenty of employees standing outside on the lawn, said Mary Concannon, a nutrition extension educator at the Baltimore County office of the University of Maryland Cooperative Extension.

"It was good planning on our part," she joked.

laura.barnhardt@baltsun.com

If you go

The Woodlawn Farmers' Market will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Thursday through September at AMF Bowling Lanes, 6410 Security Boulevard.

The Liberty Road Farmers' Market will be open from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays at Liberty Senior Center, 3525 Resource Drive in Randallstown. A "grand opening" is planned for tomorrow.

For other local farmers markets, see: www.mda.state.md.us/md_products/farmers_mar ket_dir.php

[Sources: Baltimore County government, Maryland Department of Agriculture]

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