The weather is still steamy, the kids are about to head back to school, and vegetables in home gardens around the D.C. region are getting impressively large after a summer of care. All that can only mean one thing: it’s county fair time, even in Virginia’s most urban, and smallest, county.

“We have an entire midway here with all your staples: Funnel cake, fried Oreos, cotton candy, popcorn. We have tons of rides for kids of all ages,” says Matt Richard, the Arlington County Fair board’s chair. “And if you just look around, the diversity of Arlington is represented everywhere. That’s what we’re here to support and do.”

Richard volunteered to serve on the fair’s board after meeting another board member when they both served as poll workers during the pandemic. He walked me around this year’s version on Thursday night. (The fair officially opened on Wednesday evening, but the meat of the event — which may or may not be on a stick — will be this weekend.)

The Arlington County Fair has a long history: It’s more than 40 years old, and started as a collaboration between the Arlington Community Garden Program and the local 4-H club. It still features the agricultural and crafting competitive exhibits that were the original centerpiece — which now happen inside the Thomas Jefferson Community Center. Outside, it’s the melee of lights and merry-go-round music and enthusiastic screams as the rides whip young Arlingtonians up, down, and sideways.

Richard says fair attendance is growing quickly, from 85,000 attendees two years ago to 125,000 last year. The organization believes they are “one of the largest, if not the largest free fair on the East Coast,” as he puts it.

This year, organizers are touting the event as “A Fair for All,” a nod to their desire to make the fair as accessible and free to everyone in the county as possible. Admission to the event is free, and includes musical performances, art exhibits, yard games, a robotics demonstration (not your grandma’s county fair, this), and mini golf. There are also “sensory hours” on both weekend days where organizers will turn off the music on the rides, in an attempt to make the space more welcoming for people who would otherwise be overwhelmed by it all.

Rides, food, and the chance to stuff your face in the annual pie-eating contest do require a fee. Rides are $1.25, and tickets are available at the fair or for pre-purchase online. The fair plans to donate extra money to a community endowment to fund local nonprofits and offer scholarships to particularly committed fair volunteers.

Then there’s the opportunity to marvel at the productivity and talent of your neighbors — and their perfect vegetables, flower arrangements, canned goods, baking concoctions, art, photography, quilts, other handicrafts, or educational exhibits on display. The exhibits guide is a great read if you are someone who likes wondering, “I wonder how big the largest pumpkin grown in the geographically smallest county in America is?” “Who gets to eat all the pickles after the pickle contest is over?” Or, my favorite, “What will the contestants for ‘Novelty Vegetable: any pleasingly malformed vegetable’ look like?”

“There is a very big agricultural community in Arlington County that still is growing plants in their backyard, growing pumpkins and things like that,” says Richard, as we survey the prize-winning vegetables.

There are some nearly yard-long zucchini-looking squashes that are truly impressive. Richard points out a first-prize stalk of rhubarb that is “ginormous,” a description that’s hard to argue with. The thing is larger than my head.

Also inside: about a hundred different booths run by vendors and community organizations.

“There’s one person this year that’s selling a bar of soap that looks like a cat,” Richard says. “A few board members have already been like, ‘Oh, we gotta get that.’

Parking at the fair is only available to people with ADA tags, and only neighborhood residents will be allowed to park on nearby streets. Arlington County is running a free shuttle from the Bozman Government Center (by the Court House Metro station) to the fair, and there’s also parking at Faith Lutheran Church across Route 50. There are plenty of options for getting to the site by bus or bike. Check the fair website for more information.

Arlington isn’t the only game in town in the county fair business, but Richard points out that it’s unique in the D.C. region as a truly “urban” county fair — accessible by public transportation, without permanent fairgrounds or extensive agricultural infrastructure.

“We put all this together on a middle school’s soccer fields,” he says. “I feel like this fair just has a different feeling, right? The food from the food trucks, the TJ [community center] space, the fact that it’s really driven by the community and put together by the people that live in the community.”

The Montgomery County Agricultural Fair wraps up a more than weeklong run of carnival rides, livestock competitions, truck drag racing (you read that right), deep fried candy (!), and more this weekend. So does the Prince William County Fair. (Important: this one has a mullet contest in addition to the usual crafts, food, produce, animals, and more.)

For those of you who can’t find your sun hat and your enthusiasm for that tea cup ride that might make you sick in time for this weekend, Prince George’s County has you covered, with the county fair in early September. We dare you to eat a fried oreo at every single one.