OCEAN CITY — “I like the organic carrots. They come purple, white and orange and our daughter Olive just eats them up. As a parent, you feel great about your kid eating some local organic produce,” Luke O’Brien said while sitting in the shade during the Ocean City Farmers Market recently.
He and his wife, Kathleen, were visiting from Chester Springs, Pa., and spending time with his sister, Megan Johnston of Baltimore, and their daughters Winnie Johnston and Olive O’Brien.
“Food shopping, market shopping, just getting out of the house,” Kathleen O’Brien said of their plans. “It’s a nice alternative to shopping downtown.”
Luke O’Brien and and his sister grew up visiting the city in the summer since the early 1990s.
“Anyone who has been lucky enough to have that experience to come here since they were a kid would probably agree with me that it becomes part of your fabric, your identity. These core memories that we formed as kids that we are now forming for our kids — going on the rides, Johnson’s Popcorn, Kohr Bros., Mack & Manco now Manco & Manco — Ocean City is a part of our family,” he said.
The Ocean City Farmers Market is held from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesdays through Sept. 13. Vendors selling fruit, produce and other edibles are spread throughout the grounds of the Ocean City Tabernacle at Sixth Street, while crafters are lined up along Asbury Avenue.
Diane Solonynka, of Churchville, Pa., was visiting with granddaughter Sofia Foreso, almost 13. Sofia, who lives in Virginia, said her family owns a house on the island so she is “not a shoobie.”
“I stay here all summer; I am not a renter,” she said.
They were checking out a vendor booth.
“I think this is amazing that this was done on a computer,” Solonynka told Andrea Fleegle, who was selling 3D-printed flower pots brimming with succulents at Aritimi Design Studio.
Fleegle, who lives in Northfield with her husband, Mark Berg, and son, Eddie Berg, 16, is now in her third summer of operating the business.
She said Eddie, a student at Mainland Regional High School in Linwood, designs the pots using Fusion 360 software and they print them for sale at farm markets around the region.
“They all start life in his imagination, then he sketches it out in the program and sends it to a rendering program,” Fleegle said.
It’s a time-consuming process. Fleegle said one pot — one of the larger ones she had for sale — took 30 hours to complete.
“We set it and check on it and hope that everything is OK,” she said.
Fleegle said they chose to use an eco-friendly product rather than a petroleum-based one.
“They’re actually vegan. We use a type of filament that is plant-based polymer, mostly corn starch,” Fleegle said, noting the pots are created “layer upon layer from the bottom up.”
She said her husband and son started messing around with 3D printing six years ago and decided to try marketing some of their creations.
“It was more about starting a business with Eddie and seeing where we can take this,” Fleegle said.
They also attend the farmers market held Saturday mornings at Somers Mansion across the bridge in Somers Point.
“Something that is beneficial to all of these farmers markets is that they are based in a tourist area, so every week we have new customers,” she said. “Locals come out and support us as well but it’s nice to see fresh faces every week.”
Kimberly Homon of Ocean City was buying produce from Kendahl Aurichio and Giovanna Poehlers of Springhouse Farms. The Freehold-based farm was sharing a tent with Andy’s Country Side Farm of Petersburg, where they were both selling locally grown fruit and vegetables.
“I want to get all of my produce because it’s fresh,” Homon said.
She likes buying from farm markets because of the high quality she finds.
“You know where it’s grown, they’re not spraying any pesticides on it and it tastes like fruit when we were kids,” she said.
Homon recently moved to the island from the Mullica Hill area — her son is in the U.S. Coast Guard based out of Cape May and her daughter is a students at nearby Stockton University.
Skel Neall, owner of Skelfish Metals, uses a grinder, welding torch and other tools to create colors and shape stainless-steel sheet metal into sea creatures. He designed them using software and has them laser-cut for precision.
He said he started making striper for buddies in his fishing club and expanded from there until his wife finally told him to start selling some.
“I never thought I was an artist,” Neall said, noting he recently had a month-long exhibit at a gallery in Florida.
He said his products will never fade, scratch or rust.
Jim and Jill Daggon of Budd Lake, N.J., liked what they saw and stopped to make a purchase.
“I’m getting a lot of exposure,” Neall said. “It’s the first year where I am getting weekly exposure.”
Seaville resident Patton Steffanci, 4, may have been the luckiest boy at the market. He was enjoying a doughnut while waiting in line for his mother to buy produce.
Around the corner, Timothy O’Brien was the point of contact at Doc Pickle — he knows the dill.
Kathy and Suzy Yaramishyn were out getting some fresh air. They were visiting for a week and make it a point to always visit the market.
“We do both sides. We love all the fresh fruit and all of the goodies over there and shopping here with the vendors,” Kathy Yaramishyn said.
“I love the atmosphere because it’s an outdoor market,” Suzy Yaramishyn added.
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff