The Farmers Market Displays Bright Bounties of Autumn

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun.” Or so wrote John Keats in 1819 of a rural English autumn – as it turned out, almost his last. He died from tuberculosis little more than a year later at the age of 25. Two hundred years later, the season of harvest remains a culminating time in a farm family’s life. The risk and hope of sowing fields of corn or wheat, potatoes or sugar beets in the spring has, for good or ill, come to fruition. The fields are stubble, with a few hopeful birds swooping and scratching for the last grains of the season. The cycle is complete. In our modern grocery stores, we have lost that sense of harvest and of the direct connection to food – the fruitfulness and ripening ready for our fall and winter tables – because our food now ripens around the globe (or in giant warehouses in an industrial zone). It is freighted to us from far away. After all, it’s always summer somewhere. But sunshine can’t be frozen or canned, and ripe just isn’t the same without it. Enter the Greenbelt Farmers Market. Its farmers too are winding down in the shorter days and the sparser late plantings of fall. Back again are some of those early vegetables that like the cooler days – another round of leafy greens – and brussels sprouts, those engaging miniature globes that bobble along the plant’s stalks so improbably. The flowers, the vibrant zinnias, bow out graceful to the last, punctuated with a late burst of yellow intensity as the sunflowers try to compensate for the retiring sun. The mushrooms prevail imperturbable (and oh, that mushroom soup). A person might well remark, “Oh, My Gourd” to see some of the gaily-adorned little table-sized varieties, not to mention bigger gourds transformed into decorated birdhouses. And for sure there is no shortage of pumpkins for carving and pies, table decorations and every creative purpose under the Halloween heavens. Perhaps a word is due on apples. New varieties and old friends come at this time of year. If nothing else would tempt someone to the market, it’s the formidable range of russet through green to gold of colors and flavors crisply stacked ready for eating, for pies, for cobblers, for crumbles and for that good old standby – the simple baked apple. Stop by and just sniff the perfumed air – it’s hard to resist. Move over peaches. Give way strawberries – you’ll get another turn next year. For now, hot cider, mulled with cinnamon and cloves and graced with a zest of orange and lemon, is the tipple of choice. But there’s not a long time left to enjoy the market. It too will slip into the winter sleep – hibernating until next May and a new Mother’s Day opening. The last market is always the Sunday before Thanksgiving (this year that’s November 24) followed by the single celebration of the Holiday Market, which is always timed to coincide with the City’s Festival of Lights Arts and Crafts Show on Sunday, December 8. Many of our regular vendors attend the Holiday Market but a number of new stalls will be there – some checking the market out before they consider applying for next season. After a long winter, everybody flocks to the market in spring – before the harvest has hardly begun. So, flock back in fall and get a shot of the market in the ripe and golden calm before it’s in hibernation for nearly six long months. Visit GreenbeltFarmersMarket.org for more information on the market, its vendors and how to volunteer.