Saturday morning, before the first rays of sunlight peek over the Blue Ridge Mountains and brighten the Smithfield Farm in the Shenandoah family, the Pritchard family will be preparing to bring fresh eggs and meat and homemade pasta to markets in Washington.

Betsy Pritchard will be up before 5 a.m. to start the morning chores. She will walk dewey fields to open the chicken boxes so hens can roam the fields. She bottle-feeds baby lambs and pigs. She lets sheep and goats into the fields.

Nancy, her sister-in-law, will be in the kitchen packing up fresh pasta she has made during the week from organic cheeses and herbs and eggs from the free-range chickens. By 6 a.m., Nancy’s husband, Forrest Pritchard, and Betsy’s husband, David Wiedemer, are loading trucks. By 6:30 a.m., the Pritchards are on their way, driving over the mountain, 65 miles east to farmers markets in and around D.C.

“People are becoming more aware of what they eat,” Betsy tells me. “They want to have a connection with their farmer. They have their own doctor and own dentist; maybe they need their own farmer.”

This story continues below
Advertisement

The Pritchards join what’s becoming a weekly migration of farmers trucking goods to parks, parking lots and Metro stops across the Washington region — from Takoma Park, Md., to Del Ray, Va., and points in between. They come from southern Maryland with radishes and early greens, from Pennsylvania Dutch country with pies and cakes, from upper Montgomery County with strawberries and honey.

At last count, there are 17 markets within the city limits, from Adams Morgan to Anacostia, Dupont Circle to Eastern Market.

The farmers market that opened Saturday at 14th and U streets NW by the Reeves Center could represent the most dramatic change. In April 1968, a brick through a drugstore window started riots that burned parts of the city; 39 years later, the corner is sprouting fresh veggies and eggs — including free-range eggs from Smithfield Farm.

The Saturday morning market up the street from me on Broad Branch Road at Lafayette Elementary School is almost too good to be true. I can fall out of bed, stroll up the street, buy the most buttery croissants in the universe from Bonnepart Bakery and head home for breakfast. And I can visit with Betsy Pritchard, who’s selling beef, veal, eggs and pasta, all fresh from Smithfield Farm.

Smithfield has been in the Pritchard family for nine generations. Betsy’s mother, Ruth, took over the 300-acre family farm about 20 years ago and decided to make a go of it. Ruth runs Smithfield Farm Bed and Breakfast in the 19th-century manor house; her children are prospering in the organic farming business.

I asked Betsy Pritchard how she felt about the family’s weekly routine of bringing goods to markets on Saturdays and Sundays.

“We’re crazy,” she says. “Certifiably nuts.”

But sensible for us city folk, who have become crazy about goodies fresh from the farm.

Harry Jaffe has been covering the Washington area since 1985. E-mail him at hjaffe@washingtonian.com.