For Heather Freeland, overseeing the bustling Pennsylvania Open Air Farmers Market is both gratifying and, well, fruitful.
“I like working with the community best,” she said. “I’m a natural bridge builder between people, giving them the opportunity to buy fresh foods and lead them to other organizations and events.”
This year, Freeland, the market coordinator, is particularly excited about the May 7 opening, as it marks the venue’s 50th year of operation outside the PA Farm Show Complex off Cameron Street in Harrisburg. For its anniversary year, the market is planning several new items and events.
“A mom and son want to do a snowball [shaved ice] stand this year,” said Freeland, of Dauphin. “Other fair vendors will be there, too, with other fair food like funnel cakes, and so on. Fiber, forestry and flowers will be highlighted each month for our 50th year, too.”
The market kicks off each year with eight or so vendors with in-season lettuce, spring onions, potatoes, stored apples and more.
“Things we don’t produce in Pennsylvania, we call ‘value added,’” Freeland said. “So, when things aren’t quite ready here, we’re allowed to sell them from Florida until around Memorial Day. Also, they can grow all year round with greenhouses.”
Other highlights include handcrafted goods, such as handmade soap, woolen scarves and crocheted goods, as well as live demonstrations.
By mid-summer, the market usually expands to around 30 vendors at the height of the local growing season. Sales continue through November as fall fruits and gourds come into season, and finally, fresh Thanksgiving turkeys.
As many as 400 customers per day visit the market in mid-June through Labor Day, Freeland said. As the days grow chillier into the fall, the market’s volume slips to about 100 patrons per day.
“Pennsylvania’s produce season really starts in June, July and August,” Freeland said. “We have sweet corn by the Fourth of July. We also get tomatoes, zucchini and fresh apples.”
Family-owned Troutman’s Food Service has been with the market since it first opened in 1974.
“I always enjoy seeing all of the people who come to us,” said Rahn Troutman. “We have regular customers, some from multiple generations, over the years.”
Patrons, he said, largely come from the vicinity, such as city residents, workers from area offices and HACC employees.
Troutman runs the Dornsife, Pa.-based business with his wife and two daughters, plus 10 or so part-time employees. The business started by selling freshly cut French fries but since expanded to offer much more.
“I serve several hundred customers per day at the market,” he said. “Our biggest items are French fries and hot dogs.”
Dobbs Produce is another 50-year veteran of the PA Open Air Farmers Market, said Melissa Dobbs Darr, who runs the small Newport-area farm with her parents, four siblings, husband and two teenage children.
Darr said that the family sees “several hundred” patrons each week at the market, and “thousands” stop by each year. The family begins each season selling greenhouse flowers, strawberries and tomatoes, ending with pumpkins, flowers and tree fruit.
Before the PA Open Air Farmers Market, area produce vendors often traversed the streets of Harrisburg to sell their wares to local businesses, just as Darr’s grandparents once did.
“It used to be that (produce) vendors came from all around the area to sell in Harrisburg,” Freeland said. “Then they passed laws in the early ‘70s that you no longer could solicit goods like that in Harrisburg. So then, vendors came together as a coalition where you could sell it.”
Over the years, Dobbs Produce has faced some challenges operating its market stand, according to Darr.
K. Schlegel Fruit Farm
“COVID was a big thing when we had to keep social distancing,” she recalled. “Being an open air market, masks made it hard to talk to people. Plus, we had to keep people from handling the produce too much then.”
Literally, the market has been part of Darr’s life for as long as she can remember. In fact, her father dropped off her mother at the then-Polyclinic Hospital in Harrisburg while in labor with her before continuing on to the market.
“I grew up at the market knowing some of the people who are still there after 50 years,” Darr said.
The Pennsylvania Open Air Farmers Market operates on Tuesdays and Fridays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., through Nov. 26 outside the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center. For more information, visit their Facebook page.
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