Upon arriving at the Midtown Farmers’ Market this morning, I was confused: there were cars where the market should be and a market where the cars usually park! This weekend, they were having a big resource fair for Latina families living in the area, and needed the extra space for extra tents. I eventually got over my disorientation (nobody was in their usual spot!) and was able to buy my produce without too much difficulty.

The market continues to make the transition from midsummer to late summer. Sweet corn is everywhere, and new varieties of tomatoes at new stalls are appearing. Carrots, potatoes and onions are all getting bigger and more mature. There are still plenty of green and yellow beans and a variety of summer squashes. And lot of cucumbers. One farmer I spoke to said melons would normally start this time of year but because of the cold weather were still not ripe. To me, it still seems a little early.

For the first time this week, I decided to buy garlic at the market. I usually avoid it since it is significantly more expensive than at the store, but these bulbs looked too beautiful to pass up. I have always been a little skeptical of garlic at the farmers’ market–are they really growing it locally?–but with the number of people selling it short of some kind of massive conspiracy it is probably legit.

As I was buying corn and squash the farmer interrupted our transaction to take a phone call from a friend closer to downtown monitoring the impending storm. “Storm?” I thought, looking for the first time at the sky. It looked ugly, and it was starting to get dark. And to rain. As farmers and resource fair participants desperately poked at their canopies to try to keep the rapidly accumulating pools of water from collapsing the whole operation, Martha and I donned our rain jackets and headed for our bikes. And that’s when the rain really started. But, with warm weather and no lightning, it was actually kind of nice to ride through the rain, rather than waiting under some bridge. Besides, I had vegetables to attend to.

No comments | Carrots, Corn, Farmers Market, Garlic, Green Beans, Midtown, Minneapolis, Potatoes, Squash, Storm, Tomatoes

This entry was posted by Tom on Saturday, August 8th, 2009 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Farmers Market, Minneapolis. You can subscribe to responses to this entry via RSS.