THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 20, 1994 TAG: 9408200231
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
About now around here people stop eating. Oh, they continue to take nourishment, just the ordinary fare on which to exist the rest of the year; but they no longer frequent markets and roadside stalls offering out-of-this-world fresh fruits and vegetables from local fields.
Something about August, a cool touch of a morning or school supplies in stores, makes people assume the season's kaput.
It's as if a tap turned off Aug. 1, says Juanita Burns at Pungo Blueberries on Muddy Creek Road in Virginia Beach.
``We've got blueberries you wouldn't believe,'' she said. In the next three or so weeks, berries are at their sweetest.
To assure plenty for people who pick their own, half the acreage was covered with netting to protect the berries from foraging birds. ``We gave half to the birds,'' she said.
For directions to the farm and its hours, call 468-5204. Other fields of berries are at Back Bay Blueberry Farm. For guidance call 721-BLUE.
And there still is an abundance of that fabulous cantaloupe, the Harper hybrid, at Williams Farm in Virginia Beach on North Newtown Road. Fickle weather - dry in June, a monsoon in July - wiped out the first crop of Harpers, but a second one came in strong.
They will be available this weekend, and perhaps next week. Williams also offers butter beans to pick or buy at the counter. Soon there will be seedless watermelons.
Around the bend on Haygood Road, Oliver's Farm Market has butter beans and snaps and 500 full-size watermelons delivered Friday from the Eastern Shore.
Pray, don't forget peaches. They are at Davis Farm in Virginia Beach at Princess Anne and Sandbridge roads. I never knew a child to reject cereal with fresh peaches.
By following Princess Anne Road to Knotts Island in North Carolina, 10 miles below the Virginia border, you reach Martin's Farm, which will have peaches, including Albertas, the next couple of weeks.
Here and there you find local tomatoes. Though they be small, as Daniel Webster said of Dartmouth College, there be those who love them. They are just as flavorful.
In Virginia Beach, Holly Road Produce Market on Baltic Avenue has white corn from Delaware and local tomatoes.
Up until Thanksgiving there are local tomatoes in Norfolk at Cromwell Flowers on Orchard Street just off Granby Street near the Granby Street Bridge. I prefer tomatoes to turkey that time of year.
Bill Spong tells me he found fine produce at Clark's Farm on Bruce Road in Chesapeake. Another sure source is Bennett's Creek Market in Suffolk.
For a plethora of items (including fresh tomatoes), many from North Carolina farms, explore Virginia Beach Farmers Market.
Persist and you will find provender in niches throughout this blessed land by the sea. So what do I do when winter comes?
Fast until spring, that's what. by CNB