Spring greens and tender baby vegetables will be featured as more than two dozen vendors representing family farms and small food businesses set up in the parking lot behind Bank of America at 10th Avenue East and East Thomas Street. Also available will be locally produced mushrooms, fresh pasta, local hothouse tomatoes, pastries, raw honey, farmstead cheeses and hazelnuts. The market runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Among the greens and vegetables will be asparagus, lettuce, watercress, miner's lettuce, rhubarb, radishes, celery, fiddlehead ferns, sugar snap peas and garlic chives. Considering organic chicken or duck eggs? Fresh cheeses, including goat cheese and cheddar, will be there, too.
This is the fourth year for the Broadway Sunday Farmers Market. While the number of vendors at high season has been relatively stable, and, because of space limitations, tops out at about three dozen, the customer base has grown each year.
"It has been great," said Janet Hurt, part of the market's administrative staff. "The neighborhood loves it. We have seen a steady increase in customers."
The Bank of America location is expected to be lost next year. The property is slated for development, Hurt said. Finding locations for the markets, not just on Capitol Hill, but city wide, is a problem because areas large enough to hold a market near the centers of commerce tend to be prime development sites as well.
"That's really the biggest problem the farmers markets have in Seattle," Hurt said. "None of them have a permanent location."
Lobbying continues, trying to convince the Seattle City Council to provide locations for the markets. The markets are well received in all the neighborhoods they serve, but since they are only on site one day a week, part of the year, finding suitable locations dedicated to market use is not an easy prospect.
"If you could shoot for the moon, it would be a covered place with permanent stalls, water and electric power," Hurt said. Just a large open area that has good access for the public would be satisfactory, though.
The largest of the seven farmers markets operated by The Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance is the University District Farmers Market. The University District Farmers Market regularly attracts more than 50 vendors. The oldest of Seattle's neighborhood markets, begun in 1993, it now operates year-round 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the corner of University Way and NE 50th Street, in the playground of the University Heights Center.
Other markets operated by the alliance are in Lake City, Columbia City, Magnolia, Phinney Ridge and West Seattle. The are all "producer-only" farmers markets, where farmers direct-sell their produce to shoppers, earning the full dollar value of their farm products. These markets help more than 100 small, regional farms stay in business.
Additionally, the markets offer a festival atmosphere with live music, cooking demonstrations and booths where Washington State Master Gardeners answer gardening questions. Information is also available about cooking unfamiliar vegetables and suitable recipes for them.
Farmers markets fit perfectly into "buy locally" plans, where participants try to reduce their carbon footprints by buying food that is not transported over long distances, and try to support local food producers.
Typically the neighborhood markets will have regional fruits and vegetables in season, local cheeses, meat, eggs and poultry. Also, depending on the season, honey, ciders, hard ciders, dried fruits, dried herbs, dried wild mushrooms, pickles and preserves and confections.
"People love their neighborhood markets," Hurt said. "They like being able to walk to them."
Alliance markets are all certified to accept electronic food stamps as well as WIC and Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program Coupons. Market farmers also donate leftover produce to neighborhood food banks around the city (in 2004, the NFMA received the Mayor's End Hunger Award in recognition of its work on behalf of the hungry in Seattle's communities). In 2006, the NFMA markets collectively donated more than 44,000 pounds of fresh food to local food banks.
The Farmers Market Alliance Web site, www.seattlefarmersmarkets.org, provides information about special events at each market, information about all the markets, what is fresh each week and recipes. The market newsletter is also available at the site.
The Broadway Farmers Market runs on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. beginning Sunday, May 11, through Nov. 23.
Freelance writer Korte Brueckmann can be reached at editor@capitolhilltimes.com.
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