PHOTOS: Local Farms Participate in National Farmers Market Week

On a hot and humid Tuesday afternoon at the Potomac Farm Market on Darnestown Road, a lone female worker, Megan Nicolson, wakes up early and arrives at her location nine in the morning. She works with a variety of fruits and vegetables, most notably the white and yellow peaches that envelop the area with a sweet and subtle aroma.

After the setting up the the tent, Nicolson has about an hour to take the produce off the trucks and onto her set-up. The trucks travel from the farm to Darnestown road in the span of an hour all while customers arrive. She unloads the trucks, assists any early customers, tells them a little about each product and rings up the purchases without the help from other employees.

Customers at the Potomac Farm Market will show up to the market anywhere from 9:30 to seven o'clock in the evening when she begins to take down the tent and pack things up for the night. It's a tiresome shift and she doesn't even work the fields.

Describing the kinds of customers that show up to the market, Nicolson said "they love the peaches." She also tells how the customers are loyal and how they are all friends with her boss Steve.

She attributes the customers that show up time and again to the notion that the customers have "a sense of comfort" when purchasing their products because they know they're fresh and not genetically modified.

Manager Jack Talley and other workers for Potomac Farm Market wake up even earlier than Nicolson to hand-pick the fruit and vegetables from Poolesville where they are then shipped to various locations.

Talley said the business is spread over seven locations in the Md. and Va. area with all of the farms in Md. except for one in McLean, Va.

Talley later said he was thankful for Gov. Martin O'Malley and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack's push for this week to be . He added "I think it's important... especially in this area, governments don't do a lot to support local agriculture. And a lot of it comes from customers."

Here's a look at the times and locations of the markets happening around North Potomac.

The farmers markets are not limited to the Potomac area. There are markets in many Md. locations. Find all of the locations on Md.'s Department of Agriculture website.