AROUND THE PARK AGAIN by Sharon Lee Tegler
Brought to you by Fishpaws Marketplace
If there’s one good thing about the Dog Days of August, when temperatures soar into the nineties, it’s that locally grown produce is at its peak. Due to a cool spring and rainy weather, this year’s crops got off to a slow start meaning some of our favorite farm stands opened later than usual. Once open, however, they boomed with business.
Driving in a wide circle, we visited several of our area’s outstanding farm stands starting out at Pumphrey’s Produce at 8220 Veterans Highway in Millersville. Wearing a smile as always, Nat Pumphrey was minding the family business from his stool at the counter.
A member of the well-known Pumphrey farming family, Nat is proud of his heritage. He began working on the farm at an early age and feels agriculture is in the Pumphrey DNA.
Behind and above him, in the produce stand’s rafters, was a sign welcoming customers and noting that the farm has served the public for 61 years. The sign also listed the prices of some items.
As with all the produce stands, Pumphrey’s prices are slightly higher than usual this year. The higher prices reflect inflationary costs for fertilizer, fuel and other supplies vital to growing and transporting crops.
For longtime customers like JoAnne Zoller and her husband who’ve shopped at the stand year after year, spending a few cents extra is worth it. They love the quality and taste of the fruit and vegetables they buy.
It’s obvious that maintaining the quality of their produce is of utmost importance to the Pumphreys.
“Everything you see is picked fresh from the fields right here in downtown Millersville at 6:30 each morning,” Nat Pumphrey said as he spread his arms in a wide arc. “We have 4-1/2 acres behind the stand and a larger acreage across I-97.”
In addition to a bounty of corn, slicing tomatoes, peppers, squash, zucchini and green beans, Pumphrey’s grows blackberries, cantaloupes and a variety of melons along with heirloom tomatoes, flat Italian beans, okra and other specialty crops.
“Where else can you get okra?” asked JoAnne Zoller. “This stand is the best.”
Pumphrey says he’s always experimenting with new vegetables, most of which are successful. They’ve included husk ground tomatoes, tomatillos, and Cubanelle peppers. Now, thanks to a birthday gift from friend Ed Cohen who grows crops on his allotment at Kinder Farm Park, Nat now has some Chinese long beans (also known as Alligator beans) to try, sell a few and save some of the seeds to grow next year. Cohen said he grows the beans, (which are sold in the Asian market) on a trellis and harvests pounds of them each day.
Heading back down Veterans Highway to Benfield Road, our next stop was Diehl’s Produce in Olde Severna Park at B&A Boulevard and McKinsey Road. Undeterred by the slow growing season locally, Diehl’s opened in April and managed to source some early season produce from North and South Carolina along with Eastern Shore asparagus. By late June, the shelves were overflowing with colorful fruits and vegetables. As always, there is Eastern Shore sweet corn. Thanks to contacts established by founder Doug Diehl who recently retired, the stand carries Adams County, Pennsylvania peaches – a major draw.
A variety of other vegetables draw customer’s eyes including grape, cherry and slicing tomatoes, squash, eggplants, green beans, new potatoes, spring onions and mushrooms plus an abundance of melons and jams, jellies and fresh flowers.
Manager Jennifer Diehl said she’s currently seeing many first-time customers who love being able to get “same day produce”. She said the sweet corn, garden veggies, melons and peaches are at their peak now and will remain so through August.
Like elsewhere, prices for some items were higher than in 2021 due to inflationary pressures for growers and transporters. The peach prices, for example, had to be raised 40 cents.
As usual, a sign at the counter where Calvin Winship was checking shoppers out had a sign noting that Diehl’s rounds out customers’ tabs and uses the extra change for gift certificates to donate to needy families through the SPAN, Inc. food pantry.
Leaving Diehl’s Produce in Severna Park, we moved on to Diehl’s Produce of Annapolis in Eastport where Jennifer Diehl’s sister Abby Diehl is proprietor. Having carved out a nice little niche in what is basically a cityscape, Abby’s farm stand gives Annapolis and Eastport residents a much-appreciated chance to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.
We spoke with Ryan Manusan who was helping customers from behind a sea of blueberries and pears.
Manusan said the lateness of spring planting created a need to source some produce from farther afield.
“We had to bring in strawberries and early broccoli from out west,” he said. “We sold so many strawberries and blackberries, and, as you can see, we had a lot more blueberries on this table. At least half have been sold.”
He added that peaches are plentiful since Abby Diehl was also able to source them from Adams County, Pennsylvania.
Who doesn’t love the sunflowers that add such a cheerful touch to the main tent at Diehl’s Produce of Annapolis?
Diehl’s Produce of Annapolis has been quite busy with customers coming in rushes like the one we noticed at the counter in the check-out tent. The stand will be open seven days a week from now through October.
Leaving Eastport we circled back through town to Route 50 and headed for Davidsonville where two of our favorite farm stands are located.
Chase’s Produce at 2857 Davidsonville Road (Rt.424) is owned by farmer Bob Chase and wife Marge. Like Pumphrey’s, it has operated as a family farm stand for more than 60 years and has always been renowned for its sweet corn. Every fruit and vegetable the Chases sell is grown in the fields surrounding the stand on both sides of Route 424.
Though managing to hold a shortened version of their annual “pick your own strawberries” season, the Chases experienced planting delays due to weather and were unable to open the produce stand for its regular season before the last week of June. Luckily, the stand has been busy ever since and sales have been good.
By the time we arrived Tuesday afternoon, there was little corn left, they’d run out of a few other vegetables, and melons of all kinds had sold like hotcakes.
According to Marge Chase, Bob and the students he hires are out in the fields picking corn, fruit and vegetables early each morning. She said the stand is open till 5 pm on Saturdays and Sundays and their aim is to sell all the corn by closing time and as much of the other produce as possible.
Marge added that the farm is still struggling with the rains which interfere with the ripening of zucchini and yellow squash and the second crop of cucumbers.
In addition, the Chase’s farm has experienced problems with deer. There is electric fencing around the corn fields which keep them out. But there’s no fencing elsewhere. They chose not to plant tomatoes this year because the deer destroy them. Instead, they’re getting tomatoes from Charles County. (Other farmers have trouble with deer as well. The Pumphreys solve the problem by fencing their entire farm.)
The only other item Chase’s Produce doesn’t grow is peaches which they get from an orchard in Bridgeville, Delaware and have found to be delicious.
The last stand on our circuit was Marco Ridge Farm Produce at 3208 Davidsonville Road. The 210-acre Marco Ridge farm is owned by the Covington family and located along both sides of the road with some fields directly behind the stand. These days Diane and Fred Klinken manage the stand for Alan Covington while he runs the farm.
We arrived at Marco Ridge Farm just as Covington was leaving after off-loading one of many carts filled with produce being picked throughout the day.
Customers visiting the stand generally help themselves while Alan works behind the scenes and Diane tends the till. The couple also has students helping them at their busiest times.
Corn, which arrives from the field every hour, is reasonably priced at 75 cents an ear. 
Manager Diane Kiinken greets new customers and gives them a helping hand.
Peppers were huge, the pickling cucumbers crisp and the squash a perfect size.
The Klinkens said Marco Ridge Farm has also struggled with the rains. Like others who grow everything they sell, they were late planting and couldn’t open the stand until their crops ripened a week after the 4th of July.
Fortunately, Marco Ridge Farm has so many fields full of field corn and soybeans and cover crops that deer leave the vegetables alone so they’re able to reap everything they plant. More vine-ripened produce is coming in each day and the stand also carries a great selection of made-from-the-farm products like Marco Ridge salsas, barbeque sauces and salad dressings.
Around The Park Again is brought to you this week by Fishpaws Marketplace, 954 Ritchie Hwy. – a family-owned business that carries fine wines, spirits and beers plus gourmet foods and specialty items perfect for a summer party.
