Home-grown Goods in Goochland

BY KATHERINE CALOS - Staff Writer
Published: July 22, 2008

Here’s a way to cut down on gas consumption – your own and the nation’s. Visit your local farmers’ market.

If you live in Goochland County, that means stopping by the town of Goochland any Saturday morning from May through October between 8 a.m. and noon. Neither you nor your food will have to travel far.

On the shaded grounds of Grace Episcopal Church, you’ll find vegetables in season from Adlyn Farm, creamed honey from Homestead Traditionals, goat cheese from Goats R Us, pasture-raised poultry or pork from Ault’s Family Farm, bread from the Dutch Oven Bakery, hostas grown beneath the pines at Anna Springs Garden, oddly attractive succulents from Earthscapes greenhouse and a varied assortment of other farm-raised products and handmade items. Amusements may include baby animals to pet, cooking demonstrations to watch or musicians to hear.

Plan on being an early arrival if you want a good selection of vegetables. On the spring morning when I stopped first for breakfast with a friend, we discovered that Adlyn Farm had sold out of broccoli and lettuce before 9 a.m. Like most of the market’s farms, Adlyn uses organic practices instead of antibiotics, hormones, pesticides and fertilizers. Ask to be sure, because many farms don’t have USDA organic certification.

Sense of Community

The Goochland Farmers Market was started three years ago by the Center for Rural Culture, a Goochland nonprofit organization that promotes sustainability in the county’s environmental, economic and cultural life. The market is in its second year on the church grounds.

Sharon Spofford, 64, who lives in western Henrico, has been shopping at the farmers’ market since it began.

“I grew up on my dad’s garden food,” she said. “I like home-grown, healthy, organic garden food grown by local farmers. It supports local farms.

“There’s a sense of home, a sense of community; and it’s healthier. It’s fresh, healthy and economical.” 

“Veggie Share” Agreement

Tony Lin, 33, who lives near the Goochland Courthouse, got his family’s “veggie share” from the Rural Virginia Market. Shareholders sign up for a weekly allotment from several small, family-owned farms in neighboring counties as part of a Community Supported Agriculture program.

“We come every week and pick up a bag of vegetables,” Lin said, with wife Bee-ca, 29, and children Calvin, 1, and Claudia, 3, at his side. “We’ve gotten awesome sweet peas, strawberries, turnip greens, radishes, herbs. We also come to buy the meat, chorizo. With all the stuff they put in cows, all the corn they feed, it’s good to know the sources of your foods.”

More than Food

Vendors were happy to talk about their products.

Michael T. Wallace of Earthscapes described his rare succulent houseplants in pots as coming from the “what-the-heck-is-that greenhouse. [Growing the plants] was a hobby for a long time” before he started introducing other people to the crested pattern of his Euphorbia grandicornis. “They still don’t know why plants crest,” he said. “They just do it.”

Steven Davis, owner of Virginia Naturalist and a former geology student at Virginia Tech, sells crystal sets and gemstone jewelry for anyone who appreciates the glimmer of polished rocks. His crystal sets appealed to a 5th grade teacher who planned to use them as a teaching aid for SOLs.

He lamented the lack of protection for his gems in the rough.

“There are preservation societies for everything except for rocks,” he said. “The Nature Conservancy preserves the nature areas. There’s nothing to hold up construction for geologists.” 

Homemade and Home Grown

At Homestead Traditionals, David Fitzgerald and Valerie Bareford said they made blueberry honey by freeze-drying blueberries before mixing them in with some of the 5,000 pounds of honey they harvested last year.

At Anna Springs Gardens, Anne Billingham and Joe Hooker grow 162 cultivars of hostas under the pine trees on their western Hanover farm. Little holes in the leaves are caused by pine needles falling from the trees.

“We talk to them every day,” Billingham joked at their booth. “We started with one hosta. We got another and another. If you’re going to collect them, you might as well sell them.”

And if you’re going to sell them, it might as well be at a farmers’ market.