More Locally Grown Food Is Coming To Area Tables

By Val Van Meter

Echo Ridge Nursery has evolved over the years — from growing trees and shrubs for landscaping to offering seedlings to growing food for clients who collect boxes of fresh garden produce once a week.

Soon, the Middletown acreage will present another face to the world: a new farm market in Winchester beginning May 26.

“It was our daughter’s idea,” said Theodora Rezba, owner of Echo Ridge with her husband Ben. “Mandy is the planner and organizer.”

Amanda Rezba was also the moving spirit behind the Echo Ridge CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program.

Under that program, clients sign up in the spring to receive fresh produce every week from a local farm. The produce is seasonal, so different, freshly picked items are provided each week as the year progresses, Theodora noted.

While the seedlings were set out for the CSA, it was an easy step to add a few more and have enough to support a farmers’ market, too, she said.

Since Echo Ridge already makes CSA deliveries to Winchester, it seemed like a good place to start a market, even without Theodora’s attachment to the city. She is a former member of the City Council.

She noted many reasons to buy food grown locally — taste and freshness are two important ones.

Also, farmers can plant varieties on the basis of taste, without worrying about whether they can stand up to long miles of travel from field to store.

Produce at a farmers’ market “hasn’t been flown 3,000 miles,” said Kent Barley, who with his wife Helen will be part of the North End Market.

His Stephens City farm Barleyfields has been in his family since 1867.

“I went into apples in the 1960s,” Barley said, and “I’m still growing apples, in a small way.”

Three years ago, he began growing vegetables and selling them to farmers’ markets. Now he will do the selling himself.

The Barleys will provide seasonal produce and fresh eggs, Theodora said.

While the Rezbas and the Barleys may have some produce in common, different varieties will be involved — which means shoppers have many choices, she said.

Ben estimated he is growing 30 kinds of tomatoes, which will be coming to market later in the summer.

Buying locally grown food also keeps money in the community, Theodora said, and helps to keep local farms in business.

Patrons can also learn about how their food is grown. “We don’t use any chemicals,” she said.

Echo Ridge grows all of its produce with plastic-guarded rows to keep weeds down, and drip irrigation under the plastic to conserve water.

Seaweed provides the fertilizer for the fields, said Ben, and pests are discouraged with soap sprays.

“I don’t like chemicals in my food,” said Harold Dickey, who will be the featured baker at the North End farmers’ market.

Dickey and his wife Marion offer made-from-scratch bakery products and have an entire line of gluten-free baked goods.

Gluten-free baking is entirely different from regular baking, Dickey said. “You have to relearn everything you know about baking. You have to be a food chemist.”

That’s because gluten is the ingredient in wheat flour that provides the structure for breads and cakes. Without gluten, “basically, you’re making crackers.”

So the baker must find an ingredient to do the work of gluten, as well as finding “flours” that have the proper taste and consistency.

It’s taken a lot of trial and error, Dickey said, to find ways to make chocolate chip cookies, angel-food cakes, and even shoofly pies that taste the way they should, without gluten.

“We match the taste and try to get the texture as close as we can,” he said.

The Dickeys’ business Manna Food For Life, headquartered in Martinsburg, W.Va., now participates in 14 farmers’ markets in three states, he said.

The couple expect to open a restaurant at 301 W. King St. in Martinsburg next month, which will offer soups and their baked goods — regular and gluten-free.

Dickey’s bread is also featured in the Echo Ridge CSA weekly boxes.

The North End Market will operate from 2 to 6 p.m. each Wednesday, Theodora said, at Kent and Kern streets.

The location offers a large space and off-street parking, and is convenient to the downtown area, she said.

Expect a lot of fresh greens — such as lettuce, spinach, and arugula — and turnips, while strawberries and asparagus will make their appearance shortly.

The produce is grown less than 10 miles away and will be picked fresh.