Dave Barberides, manager of The Market at Styer Orchard, and son, Stephen, brought fresh corn and tomatoes to the Capital City Farmers Market.
 

Jersey Fresh is perfect outreach for bringing farm to people at Trenton’s Capital City Farmers Market

 

By Albert C. Jones
America, The Diversity Place

TRENTON, New Jersey — People are literally out on State Street downtown at North Broad Street. Both streets are busy with pedestrians. Motor traffic has been diverted for the next three hours. Shoppers have come to buy fresh fruits and vegetables at the Capital City Farmers Market.

Trenton is the capital and city and state government support offices are within walking distance to downtown.

It is a Thursday afternoon and a few days past start of “Farmers Market Week,” officially proclaimed by the governor of New Jersey. Jersey Fresh is the marketing campaign of the state’s Department of Agriculture, encouraging consumption of home-grown fruits and vegetables here in the Garden State of America.

There are 143 such farmer markets in New Jersey. Participation, however, with Trenton being just across the Delaware River from the Pennsylvania state line, is not limited to just this state’s farmers.

Farmers markets are the best way for consumers, especially urban dwellers, to become familiar with who grows fruits and vegetables locally. The healthy idea behind Jersey Fresh is “including fruits and vegetables in your daily consumption has been shown to help maintain good health and possibly prevent certain health conditions. Make Jersey Fresh produce part of your daily routine and visit a farmers market.”

Dave Barberides, manager of The Market at Styer Orchard, was in a visiting friendly way here at the Capital City Farmers Market. Styer’s Farm cultivates 90 acres across the river in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. He and son, Stephen, brought freshly picked fine-ripened tomatoes and sweet corn plucked from the stalks this morning. Summer offerings also include asparagus, cucumber, peppers, hot peppers, eggplant, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and summer squash. Cantaloupe, bananas and grapes are shipped in from elsewhere.

The reason for the long list of available vegetables and fruits is that for some residents of Trenton this is the closet place they can come each week to get fresh produce in summer.

“People who can’t get out to the suburbs to the markets are able to come down here,” Barberides says. “It brings the farm to the people. It’s good for sales. It’s good that the city has this outdoor market. We have been coming to this market for six years.”

Business people, employees from nearby state and city offices mix with teens off on summer break and people just come in from inner-city neighborhoods of Trenton. The State Street market scene has atmosphere with live music, ranging from jazz, bluegrass, country and pop. Some weeks solo acts perform. Others weeks full bands come and play.

Vendors hawk jewelry, handbags and a children’s book authored by a writer from Trenton. Two women represent a local start-up business that markets condiments and barbecue sauces that are distributed in grocery stores in the region.

Capital City Market runs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. It was founded in 1993 by the Trenton Downtown Association: “TDA is a non-profit organization dedicated to making New Jersey’s capital city a more competitive location for business owners, and a more engaging center for workers, residents and visitors.”

Styer Orchards, which allows people to come and pick their own, has an interesting existence nowadays in Bucks County, in Middletown Township, Pennsylvania, where it has provided produce for nearly 100 years. The wish of the orchard’s owner, T. Walter Styer Jr., in his last will and testament, was that the property would always be a farm.

After Styer died, the farm was sold to Middletown Township. A trust fund was started to help maintain the property for public enjoyment. Heritage Conservancy was appointed the administrator of the trust.

According to Doylestown, Pennsylvania-based Heritage Conservancy, less than 8 percent of the land in Middletown Township is used for farming. They say, “As farmland is converted to other land uses, evidence of Middletown Township’s agricultural history is being lost.”

That fear of lost is no longer the case — evidence here of the tomatoes and sweet corn brought by Barberides and Son. Spring, summer and fall, weekday morning tours are available for school children ages 41 months to 12 years old.

Barberides invites a visitor to stop by The Market at Styer Orchard, where shoppers can sample gourmet preserves and select purchases from among freshly baked pies, homemade breads and cookies. Soups, salads specially prepared meals are cooked in the full-service kitchen.

“What we bring to the farmers market is only a glimpse of what is available out at the market,” he says.

Streets are blocked off and become a place where pedestrians can browse and shop at the Capital City Farmer Market in Trenton.