Last week, I arrived at the 32nd Street Farmers' Market a little after 9 a.m., sweaty but feeling virtuous that I got there before 10. But you early-birders know that it was still too late, something I found out soon enough when I passed a tall man carrying cherries and peas, the first of the season that I had seen.

"Is the Pea Man here?" I asked, accosting him frantically. "And where did you get the cherries?" I was told somewhat haughtily that the cherries were from Reid's Orchard. "They saved them for me, and there aren't any left," he said.

And yes, Caroline County farmer Thomas McCarthy, aka "The Pea Man," had shelled peas, but they were gone, too. "You have to get here early," my informant told me with the satisfied look of someone who has peas and cherries in his possession. Maybe this week.