Welcome April and the Farmer's Market

This year the first day of April also happened to be the first official day of the Lane County Farmer's Market main season. While the Market has been open during the Winter months, it has been on a much smaller scale. Today the full Market began, along with its neighbor the Saturday Market. The booths were filled with many of the usual Spring suspects; including these neon pink radish. How bright and cheery they are on an overcast Spring morning.

One of the more unusual offerings was this basket full of huge celeriac. I overheard someone saying the head farmer here could tell you "100 ways to cook with it"!

I loved these two-toned Rutabaga.

And here's another uncommon crop; Burdock root. I can truly say I would have no idea what do do with this crop.

Back to something more familiar with this pile of rainbow carrots.

It was a cool enough day that Leek and Potato soup sounded awfully good.

A few of the stalls were selling vegetable and herb starts.  I loved all of the colors and textures in these flats of young lettuce plants.

And there were even tomato plants for sale. While it was fun to look at them, it is way to early to even begin thinking about buying and planting out tomatoes. I will be back to make some purchases in another six weeks.

I loved these bundles of "Bright Lights" Swiss Chard. And I was also tempted by these sweet pots of Hoop-Petticoat Narcissus. I really liked their unusual rounded bloom. We might have to add this to our wish list of bulbs to buy this Fall.

Opening Weekend of The Farmer's Market

Today kicked off the official opening of the Lane County Farmer's Market. While the Market has been running for the last few months, it had shortened hours and a limited number of vendors. Today most all of the vendors were present and the Saturday Craft Market was open as well. Even though we just left Winter a brief few weeks ago, the Market vendors still had an amazing abundance of produce and other foods for sale. This beautiful Rainbow Swiss Chard caught my eye at the very first stall.

Spinach is a productive cool weather crop and there was no chortage of it for sale today.

One of my favorite places to buy plant starts is Mountain View Farm. Their booth was packed with tempting , healthy young plant starts. With the warm weather it was so tempting to buy tomatoes and peppers but I know better. I will be back for some onion plants in a few weeks and tomatoes and peppers in Mid-May.

They have a nice selection of both sweet and hot pepper plants.

The other vendor from whom I purchase plants starts is Hayhurst Farms.  This beautiful Mustard immediately caught my eye at their booth. I might have to try this variety next year.

Radish is another cold weather crop that was well represented. 

Lonesome Whistle Farm  is a wonderful resource for your local foods community. They specialize in grains, beans and corn. Today they had baskets of unique grains that you could buy and mill at home.

We are just entering asparagus season in the Willamette Valley and the few vendors who had asparagus to sell were doing a brisk business.

A basket of purple flowering broccoli. And below, an end of season sale on fruit trees. At just $5-14 each, many trees were getting snatched up. It was a perfect first Saturday for the Market to begin.

Early August at the Farmer's Market

Today we went to the Lane County Farmer's Market. It had been many weeks since my last visit and as always, there was a lot of new things to see and taste. Right off the bat I found something new to me; "Key Lime" Cucumbers. They were described as almost seedless and never bitter.

It is definitely garlic season at the Market. There were lots of interesting varieties for sale, but happily I have my own bulbs from my garden at home, ready to use.

Fresh peppers were everywhere. These "Jalapeno" were just asking to be taken home and turned into poppers.

Fresh Corn has arrived at the Market! We bought two ears to take home. There is nothing that can compare to the taste of just-picked corn.

Summer squash is at peak harvest right now. All the stands were full of fun shapes and varieties.

This stall had vases full of freshly cut dill. It made me think of dilly beans and canning.

A bountiful basket full of "Gypsy" sweet peppers. I was pleased to see that the peppers on my plant were just a bit smaller than these professionally grown ones.

Ripe melon are just beginning to appear at the Market. This stall had a beautiful display of the french variety "Charentais". I purchased one for my Dad to try.

In all of the years that I have been coming to this Farmer's Market, I have never seen cactus paddles for sale. I hope some adventurous cooks purchased a few.

An impressive stack of "Golden" beets.

This was also the fist time I have seen pickling cucumbers for sale this year. This was the same stand where I purchased mine last year when I canned my bread and butter cucumbers. It's time to be thinking about that once again!

The Big Garden - A Finish

I started my day at the Lane County Farmer's Market. I realized that I hadn't been there since Memorial Day Weekend. I arrived without any change. I decided if a free spot was open than I was meant to stay. If they were all full I would head home. The fates were on my side. I got stopped at a red light right before the free parking blocks begin. As I waited the car closest to me on that block backed up and pulled away! So very much has changed at the Market in the last five weeks. The early tomatoes are now for sale as well as the first peppers. But I stopped in my tracks when I saw this pile of corn. Only two stands had corn, and this one had much more than the other. It was a sweet bi-color and the Farmer promised that it would be delicious. I picked up two ears and headed home. We had them for dinner and I can report that he wasn't lying. It was a taste of Summer in every mouthful!

After returning from the Farmer's Market, I headed down to the big garden. While all of my dahlias are now in the ground, I still hadn't planted any annual cut flowers. So I laid out six rows. Two I planted with Zinnia "Persian Carpet". I have grown this variety for many years and just love it. Then, since the deer have wreaked havoc on my first two attempts at sunflowers up at the house, I planted three rows of the sunflower "Bright Bandolier".

For my last row I brought down the first tray that I seeded back in May. These poor marigolds have been stuck in six packs for much too long.

By this time they should be nice, stocky 4" plants. Instead they are still 1" starts, but they are alive. So, I figured nothing ventured, nothing gained. Into a row they went. If they thrive terrific, if not that's alright. I ended up with 9 little "Frances' Choice" and 12 small "Red Metamorph" in the row. To finish up the garden I thought it would be fun to plant a few decorative pumpkins. The garden doesn't get enough sun anymore to grow the big pumpkin but I think the little ones might do alright. So I made two hills and planted two seeds in each hill of the pumpkin "Mini Jack". Now the garden is complete!

Back to the Farmer's Market

Last Saturday was the official opening of the Lane County Farmer's Market. Although the Market is open every other Saturday during the Winter, on the First Saturday pf April it begins its weekly run. I was unable to attend last weekend, so this was my first visit of the year.

When we arrived, the skies were grey but the temperature was mild and it wasn't raining. There was a good crowd milling about. I do love the beautiful, old pick-up truck used as a display stand by this Farmer.

As expected for this time of year, there was an abundance of greens for sale.

This was a great display of well grown leeks. I over-heard a gentleman suggest to his wife that they by the ingredients to make potato & leek soup for dinner. Good idea!

A basket full of shallots.

An enormous pile of "French Breakfast" radish.

As always, the flower sellers were making beautiful, seasonal bouquets. The stars of the bouquets this week were the daffodils and the tulips.

An nice group of mixed color radish.

And it wouldn't be Spring without asparagus. 

After we got back home, and the rain & hail showers ended, I spent most of the afternoon working outside. I began by "re-weeding" the mudroom flowerbed. Beth and I first attacked this bed on February 24th. Since then many a new weed has sprouted! It was definitely time to give it one good going-over again. It really is amazing all of the growth that has occurred in the last 7 weeks.

The Cone Flowers were just barely beginning to leaf out back at the end of February. Now we have nice, big vigorous clumps. And for the second year in a row, the "Black & Blue" Salvia Guaranitica has made it trough the Winter. Our two plants are growing like gangbusters and I expect that they will become as monstrous as last year's plants. The hummingbirds will be so happy!

October at the Farmer's Market

I finally made it back down to the Lane County Farmer's Market today. It has been over six weeks since my last visit and so much has changed. We are now almost a month into Fall. All of the "classic" Fall produce was present but there was still a strong showing of the Summer crops. Frankly, I think there is more abundance at the Market right now, in the middle of October, than at any other time.

Sweet Potatoes, a favorite of mine, have arrived. This vendor had three different varieties for sale.

As you would expect, there were apples for sale everywhere. It is always interesting to see all of the different varieties that are available and read the descriptions of each.

I am always a bit surprised to see fresh ginger for sale. It is so unique looking and completely different in appearance then what is sold at the supermarket.

This creative florist was using hollowed out pumpkins as containers for her arrangements.

Beautiful flint corn. This variety originated with the Abenaki people of Maine.

I loved the signage at this Market stand. Beautiful & informative.

\They also produced a sign for their pepper collection.

Brussel Spouts are another Fall & early Winter favorite.

A heaping basket of Parsnips. I need to try roasting some this year.

Like apples, pears were also in abundance.

The late-season potatoes looked good too.

And how could you resist fresh caught Chinook Salmon or Rock Fish?