My town, Viroqua, boasts this lovely, vibrant farmer’s market. Not too bad for a town of 4,000, eh?
I don’t go there very often, but really, I should! Just look at what they’ve got to offer:
I was beyond thrilled to have stumbled upon these pie cherries – they are hard to grow and even harder to find in our parts – and they just happen to be my #1 favorite fruit for cooking. I purchased two quarts of them and that same afternoon my kids and I pitted them with safety pins and paper clips, stuck them in the freezer, and later turned them into this wonderful food-processor ice-cream (I used more sugar than the original recipe indicates because pie cherries are very tart).
My husband especially loved it.
Next, what do you know, we ran into my niece Penny and her mom Julia. Penny loves her big cousins.
The feeling is mutual.
There were folks selling these beautiful handmade tarts. Can you imagine how much work that is?
And they also make buckwheat crepes right there.
And not only buckwheat ones. Check out their menu!
There was homemade lemonade…
And a gentleman with all these cool birdhouses.
Creative!
There were the folks with these beautiful handmade aprons for only fifteen bucks each. I really, really wanted one! Or two. Or five. I don’t have any.
And a quilter lady. Gotta love Thomas-the-Tank-Engine bibs!
Then there were quilt pieces…
There were Mennonite mom and daugther selling all these baked goods…
And handmade candles in mason jars…
And, of course, Amish baskets…
Amish quilts… I really, really want a quilt – I don’t have any big quilts.
Fresh veggies and meat… I know these vendors personally.
Colorful yarns, probably home-spun.
The good folks at the Driftless Folk School table, no pun intended… These are Annie, Jamie, and Rice.
This is Bonnie – remember little Penny, above? Bonnie was her mom’s grade teacher for eight years at the local Waldorf school.
Bonnie is also a close friend of Julia’s mom, and a sheep and beef farmer, as well as an organic certificator – the career from which she is retiring this year.
Just before Evie was born, Bonnie had gifted us a beautiful sheep skin for the baby to lounge around on.
Handmade bath products…
Jewelry…
Pretty cards printed off original drawings…
And then there was the Veggie Mobile:
Some very expensive local blueberries (which are not easy to grow around here) – they were a little tart, but my kids loved them.
More handmade soaps…
Quilted Amish aprons – I love them!
And live music!
We brought one of these buckets home as my girl had been asking me to make pickles for weeks.
Josie loves pickles.
Cyrus doesn’t like pickles.
But Cyrus loves to cut, trim, and otherwise participate in cooking.
And that is exactly what they did! Josie washed all the cukes and then they both trimmed them and packed them into the crock. How did things suddenly get to be so easy?
Do you have a farmer’s market where you live?
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I would have gone broke at that market!! And how can you not have an apron?! I live in mine!
Your pictures are beautiful…thank you for sharing.
Happy Pickle Making!
Well we have maybe 4 but they are all too big/fabric too stiff/wrong shape for my body. These were nice and thin. I just cook in my home clothes and wipe fingers on a washcloth.
gorgeous photos that really make me want to find a farmer’s market!
i love my aprons. i have 2 that are the same, plain white, but my favorite one was purchased at a market in france, and has a provencal olive print. i’ve even been known to wear that one to the store when i’m in the middle of cooking and realize i’m missing a crucial ingredient.
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I would be there every week and spend all my spare money & then some. You are SOOOO lucky. Our market consists of a head or 2 of cabbage, and some garlic bulbs. Oye
Nice! Ours is pretty good too for about the same size town but yours is wayyy bigger.
I too need an apron that I love. I try to remember to wear it because I tend to make a mess of my clothes.
My kids now are also a great age to help in the kitchen. They hulled 5 buckets of strawberries for me recently
Paulette recently posted..Mission accomplished, and a new venture
Nice!!
One of the advantages of living in Washington’s Agricultural Hub is plenty of Farmers Markets. None of ours has a Bison Ranch selling stuff though…your very first picture made me jealous, but we do have plenty of cherries, so I guess we break even.
Greg recently posted..Well, they were all wearing masks…
I guess we do!
The nearest one is in Whitewater & it’s small but very friendly. A guy who makes birdhouses, a lady who does jams and salsas, another who makes soap. 2 honey tents, a baked goods space, Farmer Paul who always has whole chickens and eggs, and a few assorted tents with whatever produce is ready that week. If we want to travel a bit, we’ll head to Fort Atkinson which is more like yours, minus the Amish goods. If we really, really want to make a day of it, we’ll drive the hour to Madison and hit the big one at the capital. All kinds of goodies there!
Yes, that one is amazing, the Madison one!
What a beautiful farmers market! That yarn! And those quilts! I really want a quilt, or better yet, learn how to sew and make one. My mom is a vendor at her local market and I have fond memories of wondering through them as a child.
I couldn’t have left without an apron. I love getting a new one, they remind me of days spent in the kitchen with my favorite grandmother. My favorite is the one my husband’s grandmother made me the first Christmas we were married. Then I took the one she made my husband because it was too small. Then my mother in law gave me the ones she had, because she doesn’t like to cook. I love how well made they are, his grandmother is a seamstress and it shows.
I would weep with joy to have such a farmers market!
There are two in my area. The one is sad, just sad. It has one stand where the people buy produce in bulk from Aldis (a bare bones sort of bulk grocery store) and resell it and another that sells crappy candles. The other one is really large with butchers, seafood suppliers, bakeries and such but it is a far drive and I rarely go.