Over twenty farmers come to market each Saturday morning. We arrive, rains or shine, in box trucks, vans, pick-ups. My farm vehicle is an aged blue station wagon. Retired from highway driving, it now hauls compost, wood chips and flower buckets.
Each farmer’s arrival is closely timed: not too much time in the field for a final morning harvest; just enough time to set up tents and umbrellas, tables and display before the start of market.
The largest vendor, Dondero Orchards, arrives first. The number of tables Joe and his crew set up expands and contracts with the season, but the arrangement of produce never varies. It’s fruit to the north, veggies to the south, and baked goods in the middle. Cartons of red strawberries cover the table surface in mid-June. By July, blueberries, blackberries and peaches arrive; apples follow later. Green zucchinis, yellow squash, and purple eggplant overflow their bushel baskets. Buyer soon reduce multi-pyramids of corn to small mounds of browned silks. Fruit pies, packed at the orchard store in Glastonbury, take their place at center stage.
Highland Thistle Farm is next in line. The farm offers huge heads of greens: oakleaf lettuce, arugula, cilantro and kale. No wilted and pale Iceberg lettuce here. Dark green Poblanos join red and yellow bell peppers in cardboard display boxes. Fresh-pulled heads of garlic, stem and leaves still attached, stretch across the entire width of the table. Blue coolers in the white van hold frozen chicken, lamb chops, and kielbasa.
Bobby Guzzo, a local fisherman and his partner Lisa Richmond set up next to Thistle Farm. Cracked ice covers their tabletop. Transparent plastic bins, cooled by the ice, display the catch: hunks of Block Island swordfish, red ocean shrimp, huge scallops, glossy filets of flounder and cod. A scale sits nearby, ready to weigh your portion.
No comments:
Post a Comment