Purple cabbage slaw. Photo courtsey of Hex Ferment’s Facebook page.

This week DCist is getting sprung for spring. All week long we’ll be spotlighting ways to eat and cook the bounty of fruits and vegetables that are finally peeking their little green heads out of the soil.

Part of the fun of going to farmers’ markets comes from observing (and devouring) the changing selection each week as new fruits and vegetables come into season. While fresh produce pickings are slimmer at the start of the season, there are still plenty of novelties to enjoy, from entirely new vendors to familiar faces bringing in new products. Here’s a sampling of things that caught our attention at FRESHFARM markets this year:

Atwater’s
This Baltimore-based café and market specializes in naturally leavened breads, soups, and pastries made using traditional methods. They are trying to increase the percentage of local flour they use in their breads, which stands at about 25 percent this year. New breads this season include scalded rye, sunflower seed-studded sunny buck, and flatbread topped with local veggies. They’re also bringing a new bread made with rare turkey red wheat flour, an heirloom variety that was first cultivated in what is now eastern Ukraine and arrived in the U.S. in the late 1800s along with Mennonites fleeing religious persecution. Kansas used to be swimming in it until it was replaced with higher-yielding but more bitter varieties. Atwater’s gets theirs from one of the few farms on the East Coast now growing it, Next Step Produce in southern Maryland.

Atwater’s has stands at the Foggy Bottom, H Street, Dupont Circle, Mt. Pleasant, and Palisades farmers markets.

Scaled rye loaves. Photo courtesy of Atwater’s Facebook page.

HEX Ferments
New to the D.C. market scene, this small operation from Baltimore ferments organically grown local produce to create krauts, pickles, kimchis, and kombucha the slow way (without heat or vinegar), which keeps the bacteria that make fermented foods good for digestion—probiotics—from dying off in the process. If you’ve grown weary of seeing the same kombucha flavors over and over, you might be enticed by their fennel bee pollen and blackberry nettle options. They’re also pickling purple carrots, black radishes, and sea vegetables, among other experiments.

HEX Ferments can be found at the CityCenter and Foggy Bottom markets.

MISFIT Juicery
This is where the ugly produce goes to be turned into swans, otherwise known as cold-pressed juices made from unpurchased fruits and vegetables from CSAs, food aggregators, and local farmers. Georgetown School of Foreign Service students Phillip Wong and Ann Yang created the company last year after hatching the idea in an entrepreneurship class they were taking. With a reported 6 billion pounds of produce going unharvested or unpurchased in the U.S. every year—due in part to aesthetic standards that erroneously equate symmetry with deliciousness—we’re happy that at least a fraction of that food is finding new life in liquid form. Flavors include Offbeet (beet, apple, carrot, lemon, and ginger) and Far from the Tree (apple, lemon, and mint), among others.

Pick up MISFIT juices at the Foggy Bottom and H Street markets.

Lion’s Mane. Photo courtesy of North Cove’s Facebook page.

North Cove Mushrooms
Eason Burke and Robin Serne produce sweet oyster and earthy shiitake mushrooms on their farm in Madison County, VA. This year they’re adding lion’s mane mushrooms, a buttery-tasting natural sponge of a fungus that soaks up sauces readily. Soon they’ll also be bringing grass-fed beef from the cattle of Mountain Prospect Farm, who’ve been snacking on North Cove’s mushrooms. And for all you ramp hounds out there, they’ll have mushroom and ramp ravioli.

North Cove has stands at the Dupont Circle and Silver Spring markets.

O Earth Creamery and Bakehouse
Self-taught baker and chef Annette Ryan prepares her line of gluten-free breads and pastries and dairy-free creamery products from sprouted nuts and seeds at Mess Hall, a culinary incubator in Brookland. (Her products are not yet certified gluten-free, but she says she is working towards that.) When Annette brought in samples of her products to the FRESHFARM headquarters earlier this year, she was offered coveted space at two of the city’s most-trafficked markets on the spot; typically the wait time for an aspiring vendor might be two or three years. Try her scones and tartlets featuring seasonal fruits from local purveyors, breads in flavors like rosemary olive and raisin walnut, and, a bit later in the season, vegan quiche, often featuring fungi from the neighboring North Cove Mushrooms stall.

Look for O Earth Creamery and Bakehouse at the Dupont Circle and CityCenter markets.