In the classic book “Blueberries for Sal,” a little girl and a bear cub harvest berries with their mothers, and the blueberry outing is disrupted by a surprise around the bush.
One needn’t brave encounters with bears to harvest those healthful blue jewels.

Go instead to your local U-pick patch or to your nearest farmers market.

Blueberries, along with other summer berries, and fruits and vegetables of all kinds, can be found in rich abundance, thanks to your friends and neighbors who grow the bounty and bring it to a market near you.

Gorge Grown Farmers Market and the Hood River Saturday are two such cornucopia, conveniently located in Hood River.

Both operate into the fall, but now is the ideal time to pay a visit if you have never done so, for Aug. 2-9, is Oregon Farmers Market week.

Besides fresh produce, Hood River’s farmers markets offer crafts, herbs, bread, meat, flowers, cheeses, and many more kinds of locally grown or hand-made items and delicacies.

The people who provide them love the creating and nurturing but also relish the chance to meet the people who will consume or use what they have made or grown.

And therein lies one of the joys of the farmer’s market: the personal contact.

There is much to be said for going to any grocery store and running into friends discussing choices of melons or corn (or beer or ice cream, for that matter).

Or, place yourself in a farmers market, where the grower has just set up bags of fresh greens cut from the stalks just two hours ago and four miles away.

Those greens will taste good and you’ll find out exactly why they taste good, from the person who put the seeds in the ground, tilled and tended the soil, kept the weeds and pests at bay (often through organic means) and picked or harvested them at just the right moment. Often when you meet the grower you also meet his children or other family members who also had a hand in bringing the produce to market.

More than 90,000 Oregonians across the state visit farmers markets each week, and Hood River County is fortunate to have two weekly markets. As Gov. Ted Kulongoski notes in his Farmers Market Week proclamation, “the markets provide more than 1,000 small, family-owned farms with a substantive income and provide fresh Oregon-grown produce to 90,000 market visitors each week during the season.”

“Oregon farmers markets provide a venue for shoppers to learn about healthy fresh foods and support low-income shoppers through the WIC and Senior Farm Direct Nutrition Programs.”

But 90,000 is less than 2 percent of the total population of Oregon. So how to get more people down to the markets, or to make buying local products, in season, a part of the week’s food purchases?

Eating locally grown products “is by far one of the easiest efforts you can make to improve our life and the entire community within the Gorge,” writes Ann Kramer, Gorge Grown founder, in the “Who’s Your Farmer” 2008-09 guide to local markets.

Buying locally grown food means that the money you pay goes directly to the grower, to pay for his or her seeds, water, and mortgage, rather than to conglomerate food companies, oil companies, and advertising agencies.

The food is grown locally, meaning it is fresher and higher in nutritional quality, Kramer notes.

You might not be getting the berries right from the bush, like Sal and her mom, but it’s the next best thing.