Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Judy Gauldin buys produce from Leighton Hodges of Catawba Valley Farms as Kim Poole and her daughters (from left) Evelyn, 7, Emma, 4 and Charlotte, 1, wait in line. The Catawba farmers market opened in May and is located by the general store in town, just down the road from The Homeplace restaurant.

Locally grown produce, bread, alpaca wool and other goods are sold at the Catawba farmers market on Virginia 311.

Virginia Tech's Catawba Sustainability Center, an extension project located on the old Catawba Farm, helped organize the weekly market.

Put the words "food" and "Catawba" together, and most folks in these parts probably think of The Homeplace restaurant.

A mecca for lovers of country-style fried chicken, mashed potatoes and biscuits, the restaurant draws the hungry from miles in every direction to the remote Roanoke County village.

But this summer, a newly created farmers market -- just south of the restaurant on Virginia 311 -- is creating a buzz of its own.

Every Thursday between 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., 10 to 12 vendors set up their wares under canopies beside the Catawba Valley General Store, drawing scores of customers.

Visitors expecting only the usual country produce are in for a surprise. That's there, all right, but the market -- small by city standards -- has items representing an international flavor, which are all locally produced.

There are, of course, veggies such as squash, green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and corn, when they're in season. But there is also smoked trout, alpaca wool, fresh breads, wild blackberries, ready-to-eat tamales and chipotle hummus.

"The local foods movement has allowed markets like this to grow," said Joe Burge, the guy with the tamales and hummus. All his prepared foods use ingredients he's grown on his property off Blacksburg Road, he said, and reflect a childhood spent in a variety of overseas locations, including Guatemala.

"I was born down there, where I picked up those international flavors and brought them to Virginia," Burge said.

Burge, like most of the vendors, is quick to credit the Catawba Sustainability Center, a Virginia Tech extension project located on the old Catawba Farm just down the road, for getting the market going.

And it wouldn't be possible without the donation of the site by general store owners Carol and Mark Brewer.

"We don't see them as competitors," Carol Brewer said Thursday as she picked up some produce. "Most of these people are my customers.

"This is a small community, and you help out when you can."

For vendors Pam and Steve Hall, the sales of crops from their market garden have been a blessing as they look for work, Pam Hall said. The camaraderie is equally important, she said.

"We're kind of like a big family now," she said.

Vendors pay $10 a month for a canopy provided by the sustainability center -- and the assistance of its director, Christy Gabbard, who was universally praised for her dedication to the project.

"Christy does a lot of work, putting it all together for everybody," Pam Hall said.

Gabbard's center is part of Tech's Outreach and International Affairs office at the university's Roanoke Center. More directly, it's an extension of VT Earthworks, which the university's website calls a "Regional Economic Generation Center for agriculture and natural resource businesses."

"The farmers market stemmed from our work with the community," Gabbard said. "They expressed an interest in having a place to buy locally produced food, and one of the things we're trying to do at the sustainability center is lift up agricultural and natural-resource based businesses."

The market is serving as an incubator project for VT Earthworks, showing how such businesses can serve a regional market, she said.

Betty Bailey has about 30 items on her product list throughout the season, she said, all grown on a farm that has been in her family for generations.

This week, she was displaying a variety of herbs, some green beans and squash, and the last of the season's wild blackberries. Earlier in the season, she had corn. Later on, she'll have nuts, keeping the business going into October.

As do several of the Catawba vendors, Bailey also sells her products at other markets, including the weekend Grandin Market in Roanoke.

Katherine Chewning, a recent New York transplant, also sells at Grandin, providing dark smoked trout, as well as fresh unsmoked trout, from Big Pine Trout Farm in New Castle.

"Local food is the way to sustain the local economy," she said. "It's keeping our money close to home."

Many of the vendors will be among the participants in next Saturday's Celebrate Catawba festivities to be held at the community center and sustainability center.

Activities, which stretch from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., also will include musicians, demonstrations and displays from community organizations. More information is available at www.celebratecatawba.com.