Our 2nd Annual Behnke Nursery Fundraiser

The good people at Behnke Nurseries want to help you make your garden more beautiful while helping Cheverly Community Market, too!

Shop at Behnke Nurseries on Saturday, May 23. Bring this coupon, and 10% of your total will be donated to Cheverly Community Market. This is a great benefit to us -- we keep vendor costs as low as possible, and continue to grow our Market in order to better serve Cheverly.

Behnke Nurseries has two locations -- visit their website for directions:

Behnke Nursery Beltsville: 111300 Baltimore Avenue

Behnke Nursery Potomac: 9545 River Road

Please print out the coupon, share it with neighbors, forward it to your friends!

Meet Our Vendors!

As we prepare for our 2009 Market season over the next few weeks, we'll be highlighting our new vendors and reminding you about our great returning vendors. First up, new vendor Shlagel Farms!

Shlagel Farms, in Waldorf, Maryland, is a third generation family farm operated by Russ & Eileen Shlagel and their five children. The farm is located on the northern edge of busy Waldorf, in Charles County, Maryland, just out of earshot of commuter traffic on US 301. You can hear the cows calling to each other and smell the sweet pungent aroma of ripening strawberries! The farm is open to the public in the spring for strawberry picking & greenhouse flowers and bedding plants. In the fall, the farm offers mums and seasonal vegetables. Shlagel Farms specializes in vegetable production, selling wholesale to Washington, DC area stores and farmer's markets. They also raise quality hay for the pleasure horse trade, as well as field corn and soybeans to feed their herd of Angus beef cattle. The farm is open to the public in spring for visitors to enjoy a day in the country relaxing with family and picking strawberries.

We welcome new vendor Shlagel Farms to Cheverly Community Market -- we are very pleased to help them bring fantastic produce to you this year! At our opening Market on May 30, make sure to stop by and welcome the Shlagels to our Market community. And pick up some of those luscious, gorgeous strawberries. (We'll post some fantastic recipes featuring strawberries this week, too!)

Cheverly Garden Club

The Cheverly Garden Club holds its annual sale this Saturday (May 9) at the Cheverly Town Park Pavillion from 8:00am until the last plant is gone. The Garden Club has lovely plants, and they always sell out quickly, so make sure to get to the park early!

2009 Market Vendors...

We are very excited to announce three (3!) new produce vendors this year, all bringing fruit to the Market: Schlagel Farms -- they'll bring their luscious strawberries to our opening Market Swann Farms- Peaches Reberts Farms- Third generation farmers growing an amazing variety (Sugar peas, peas, onions, red beets, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, lima beans, cantaloupes, watermelons, sweet corn, strawberries, black berries, red, yellow, and black raspberries, blueberries, red and white potatoes, sweet potatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, patty pans, jack be littles, bird house gourds, gooseneck gourds, cucumbers, spaghetti squash, acorn squash, butternut squash, buttercup squash, lakota squash, blue hubbard squash, pumpkins, egg plants, apricots, peaches, nectarines, dark and white sweet cherries, sour cherries, 8 types of plums. Apples include: Lodi, Tansparent, Summer Rambo, Ginger Gold, Gala, Honey Crisp, Macintosh, Cortland, Jona Gold, Golden Supreme, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Stayman, Northern Spy, Banana, Smoke House, Grimes Golden, York, Rome, Sweet Paradise, Jonathan, Granny Smith, Empire, Zestar, Starks Delicious, Fugi) In our poll last year, the overwhelming request was for more produce, especially fruit, so we're really pleased to bring these three producers to you. In addition to our new friends, many of our old friends will be back this year: Cheverly United Methodist Church Fair Trade Gifts and Coffee Martha's Jams Cheverly Breadbasket featuring Firehook and Moctec Tom Baldwin/New Starts Farm Joanne Romano/Golden Leaf Pax River Alpacas Rose Fennel Pottery Basignani Vineyards Elk Run Vineyards Al Pong (Produce & Plants) Clan Stewart Farm Andrews & Dunham Damn Fine Tea Simple Pleasures Ice Cream (And, of course, this list will grow in the coming weeks!) And, of course, Cheverly Community Market is very pleased to offer music by our very own house band, The Hot Noodles. We can't wait to get a pastry and a cup of coffee, pull up a chair and enjoy the band! And getting the best local produce, plants, bread, seafood, meat and other provisions? Cheverly Community Market can't be beat! Finally, make a note of our extended hours: 8:00am to noon. We frequently stayed open after 11:00am last year, but this year we're making it official. Many more updates in the coming weeks as we prepare for our opening Market (May 30). You can follow us on facebook or twitter for the nitty gritty...

See you (very soon!) at the Market

Congratulations

to the winners of the James Beard Foundation awards. If you have a moment, make sure to look them up -- there are some great books and a lot of inspiration here. Personal favorites: Bittman and Pollan. Tomorrow we'll introduce some of our 2009 Market vendors! We're only a few weeks away from the kickoff to our season and we have some very exciting developments to share with you in coming days. -- blogging via iPhone

Local boys (and vendors) make good...

Our very own Charles Andrews (of the Market house band, the Hot Noodles) and Erik Dunham (spouse of another Hot Noodles and all-around man of the Market) are garnering a lot of press of late with their Andrews & Dunham Damn Fine Tea. They're featured on a lot of websites with all those things you want (uncrate, the awesomer, the find buzz, cool hunting, modish, picocool, lovely package, tea muse) and in funny interviews (nutgraf, tea pages). They really do have wonderful, wonderfully packaged fine teas. Their first curated tea set is still available...second coming soon. They're being called the bad boys of tea! We're very proud to be the first place where the public could buy their wares...congratulations, gents!

Busy, busy bees!

Cheverly Community Market is doing all sorts of things to get ready for the upcoming season. One thing we're doing: using various communication technologies to share updates and experiences with you in many new ways. This year, in addition to the stories you'll find here on our blog and the wealth of information on our website, we'll share all sorts of news on twitter and our facebook group page. We'll also be liveblogging the Market on Whrrl. We think you'll have a lot of fun with these fantastic tools, learn more about how the Market works behind the scenes and get to share in the experience when you can't be there in person. Of course, you'll also be able to see Market photos and share your own on flickr or get updates in your email via our listserv, too. The point is that we want share Market information with you in the way that's best for you. (If that's crayon and paper, I'm sure we can find someone to do that, too.) We hope you explore these venues and share your thoughts and Market experiences with us.