Farmer's Market Plenty

I think this is the height of the season for farmer's markets. The strawberries and peaches may be all but gone, but there is so much more...
I was absolutely thrilled that the tomatoes are still holding on, I have a recipe for a chippea tomatoe salad I can't wait to make tonight. And the apples are now in full swing and the pears too! And the gourds, potatoes, onions, greens, honey, and so much more.
This week I got Fuji apples (my fav apple variety), and Bartlett pears from a St. Joe farm, which just warms my heart. Last week I bought a gallon of their cider and am still working on it. Not pictured here are two bunches of beets I plan on cooking up. The first I have bought this season.
The plum tomatoes and mini pumpkins are both from a farm in wisconsin.

There are three more mini pumpkins of the more traditional variety not shown, but I just LOVE the mottled skin on these. And they way the look in my yellow and orange kitchen. These mini pumpkins are the first purely decorative thing I have bought at the market, even though the beautiful flower stall does temp me every week.

I am so afraid that one week I am going to show up on Tueday morning with my dog, my weekly budget $15 and my tote bag to find an empty parking lot. I know I should just ask or look up the last date, but I just don't want this weekly bounty to ever end. The market is so much more beautiful than the produce dept at the store. So lively. The temporariness of it makes it more vital. Maybe that's not the word, more enchanting. Oh there are so many things it is.

Last year I participated in a CSA, I still do, but only for eggs and cheese. It was always too much food, I couldn't get through it all, before it would go bad. But I did love the way it made me feel. Like I was supporting the farms directly. The little guys, like my grandpa. He had to sell his farm in around 1970, but I wonder if this movement had happened back then, if he would have been able to hold on. The market taps into all that too. Sometimes I wish I could buy a farm and get some sheep and go rural. But for now I'll just enjoy my little piece of country life in the produce the good farmers share with us.