A fruitful afternoon at the Wakefield Farmers Market

We dropped by the Wakefield Farmers Market yesterday and found customers stocking up on fresh produce, new and longtime vendors, and people buying extra items for less-advantaged residents.

The Nourish Your Neighbor program asks shoppers on the last day of the month to drop off extra food at the market information tent. Food donated at both the Wakefield and Annandale markets will be distributed to the ACCA Food Pantry.

Nourish Your Neighbor will be available tomorrow at the Annandale Farmers Market at Mason District Park, 6621 Columbia Pike. The Annandale market is open on Thursdays, 8 a.m.-noon.

The Wakefield Market, in the parking lot at Wakefield Park, 8100 Braddock Road, Annandale, is open every Wednesday, 2-6 p.m.

Both markets accept SNAP benefits. Customers can bring food scraps to both markets for composting.

We caught up with Farmers Market shopper Joan, from Annandale, who rarely misses a Wednesday at the Wakefield market. She was filling up a bag with asparagus, rhubarb, strawberries, gold rush apples, and pink lady apples at the Kuhn Orchards booth.

“It’s hard to find tart apples like these at grocery stores,” she said. “I really like to get fresh stuff. I also want to keep these people in business.”

For Mary, a resident of Springfield, it was her first time at the market. She and her sister and her sister’s kids had been swimming at the Audrey Moore Rec Center and decided to stop on the way home.

Mary picked up a couple of loaves of bread at the Baguette Republic. Her sister got a matcha at Kaphiy Coffee Roasters, and the kids got apples. Mary plans to come back and bring her mother.

John, a resident of Lincolnia Park, tries to come to the Wakefield market every week, schedule permitting. He was waiting for cantaloupes to make an appearance, but in the meantime, bought some red lettuce, broccoli, strawberries, and asparagus from Linda Vista Farm. “They have good produce. It’s not cheap,” he said.

While many of the farmers at the Wakefield Market were selling fresh vegetables and fruit, Viar Farms was all about the meat.

Related story: Farmers markets open the first week of May

The Viar booth had beef, pork, sausages, ground beef, steak, oxtail, and tubs of beef tallow, which is used for cooking and is healthier than butter or oil, said staff member Joel Hammerquist, known on the farm as “Private Porkchop.” The boss’s nickname is “Sir Sirloin.”

The Viar family operates a farm in Manassas where they raise cows, chickens, and pigs, and a larger farm in Nokesville.

One of the items offered by Katherine Adams, proprietor of the Stallard Road apothecary farm, was “fire cider.” It’s made from apple cider vinegar and raw garlic, onion, and horseradish, plus a mixture of herbs. It’s a traditional concoction that clears out the sinuses, making it great for colds, she said. It also treats high blood pressure and arthritis.

Adams, based in Culpeper County, grows herbs and makes her own remedies, which she’s been selling at farmers’ markets for 20 years. Among the other items she sold at the Wakefield Market: elderberry syrup, herbal-based bug spray that repels mosquitoes and ticks, herbal teas, salves for pain and eczema, and herb plants.

A new vendor at the Wakefield Market, this year, Black Sesame, makes and sells several varieties of onigiri. James Eum, proprietor of the Black Sesame store in Fairfax, said the most popular varieties are shitake mushroom, chicken curry, tofu inari, teriyaki salmon, kimchi tuna, and spam musubi.

For dessert, there was Grammy J’s Baking. Chocolate chip cookies are the biggest sellers, said Jacki Ferebee of Burke, also known as Grammy J. Other cookie varieties include banana pudding, blueberry cheesecake, cranberry lemon, and many more. She also makes dairy-free and gluten-free cookies and cookies for dogs.

Ferebee has been baking for more than 50 years. She embraced her entrepreneurial spirit, turning to baking full-time after her career as an executive assistant was upended by a corporate restructuring in 2022.

Grammy J’s motto is “Life is Short, Eat the Cookie.”