Washington Farmers Markets

Eat fresh and local all year long

It is celeriac and sunchoke season. How should I prepare them, you ask? Or perhaps, more likely, what the heck are they?

Quandaries such are these are exactly why so many people are falling in love with farmers markets these days, with some treating their weekly market visit as important as a trip to their house of worship. Farmers markets are a place where you can meet your local crops and the farmers who grow them. You will meet your neighbors and your community as well. You will meet the local seasons head on and learn about crops you don't see in big grocery stores.

Farmers markets are booming these days. In 2005, 89 farmers markets in Washington state sold over $25 million in Washington grown and produced products. That is up from $5 million in sales at 56 farmers markets in 1997. And when the Washington State Farmers Market Association was founded in 1979, it had only five member markets.

Photo: Nature's Last Stand farm's braising mix, made up of hearty winter greens like kale, chard and mustard, at the Ballard Farmers Market in January 2005. Photo copyright 2006 by Zachary D. Lyons

By no means are farmers markets a recent phenomenon. They are ancient. They are, perhaps, the second oldest profession. As long as there has been agriculture, there have been farmers markets, whether organized or spontaneous. In fact, markets likely existed since before agriculture, as a means of trading surpluses of wild harvested and hunted goods within and between communities. Farmers markets exist in every civilization, and like here, they reflect their host communities. Watch any travel show and they invariably visit a local farmers market as a means of getting to better know the community.

Farmers markets are places of economic democracy in action where locals buy from locals, and their dollars support, and re-circulate within, the local economy. They are also places of great diversity, bringing together people of every economic, political, ethnic, gender, racial, sexual, religious, and every other persuasion imaginable in a place where all are equal. The vendors are just as diverse as the customers. Farmers markets are often run democratically. Indeed, they were one of the only forms of free enterprise and free expression to survive the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union, as they served as a primary means of local community food security when the Soviet Union itself struggled to feed its people. Had they shut the markets down, the Soviets likely would have been ousted much sooner.

But I digress. The question at hand here pertains to celeriac (a.k.a., celery root) and sunchokes (a.k.a., Jerusalem artichokes) both in season in the winter. Unfortunately, you are thinking, farmers markets are not. Ah, but they are. In fact, in Seattle three farmers markets are open this winter: University District and West Seattle Farmers Markets, which are open through February, and Ballard Farmers Market, which is open year round.

In as much as farmers markets have grown in numbers and sales in the last ten years, they have also changed dramatically. Their vendor bases have diversified considerably with the addition of meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, fresh dairy products, artisan cheeses, bakeries, and even wine. They have extended their seasons, opening earlier in the year and closing later, with some, like Ballard, operating all year.

Our climate in Washington is conducive to the growing and harvesting of crops year round, and many farmers have learned to grow crops, or to employ growing techniques which allow them to be planting and harvesting throughout the entire year. Farmers are growing more "storage crops," crops like apples, potatoes and winter squash that store well so they can be sold later. Plus farmers are learning to "value add," which means they are taking their harvests and processing them to extend their shelf lives, or creating new products, which means you have access to their harvests longer so you have that many more options from which to choose.

So, it is celeriac and sunchoke season right now at farmers markets, because some markets are open and the farmers are harvesting these crops. Farmers like Wade Bennett of Rockridge Orchards in Enumclaw, who is selling his sunchokes at the University District and West Seattle markets through February, as well as his specialty spicy greens, bamboo and tea plants, and his Asian pear cider, hard cider and wine. Farmers like the Baileys of Evergreen Station Farm in Ferndale, from whom you can get celeriac at the Ballard market, are also now selling their burdock and horse radish root, black radishes, and other crops less familiar to many of us, as well as some of the biggest carrots you may have ever seen.

Photo: Wade Bennett, of Rockridge Orchards in Enumclaw, displays his Asian pear, apple, and berry hard ciders at the University District Farmers Market in Seattle January 2005.
Photo copyright 2006 by Zachary D. Lyons

While you're at it, you can pick up some organic eggs and grass fed beef from Ben Roberts. Ben owns Rickman Gulch Farms with his wife Nikki, who is the fourth generation of her family to work the farm, which dates back to 1889. Each week, Ben loads up his truck with his signature egg refrigerator and his beef coolers, and he makes the 300-mile trek from Pomeroy, in the Southeast corner of the state, to come over to Ballard for the Sunday market. "Our eggs are the only soy-free, omega-3 rich, certified organic eggs in the Pacific Northwest," says Ben Roberts. And while grocery store eggs can be weeks old, "Our eggs go from chicken to you within three to four days," he adds.

Justin Neidermeyer sells his hand cut artisan pastas at the Ballard Farmers Market. All of the ingredients are from market vendors, save for the flour, olive oil, and some of the cheese he uses. He uses eggs from Ben Roberts, for instance. He worked for Café Juanita and as a private chef, before transitioning in January 2005 to sell full-time at farmers markets. Farmers markets often help ‘incubate' startup farms and food processing businesses. That has certainly been the case with Neidermeyer as he sees selling at farmers markets his end goal, not his starting place. "Farmers markets offer me a unique lifestyle," he said. "They're outside in the fresh air, and they allow me to connect with the seasons and the people who buy my pasta. That is much more difficult in a restaurant setting."

John Huschly has sold at farmers markets for as long as he has been farming. He co-founded Carnation's Full Circle Farm in 1996 with Andrew Stout and Wendy Munroe, when the three moved to Washington from Madison, Wisconsin. Huschly sold his share in Full Circle in 1999, and started Nature's Last Stand farm, also in Carnation. He likes the simpler operation and lower overhead of his 3-acre farm, and he sells only through farmers markets and CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) shares. "I really don't want to be harvesting more," said Huschly. "At farmers markets, I get the full retail dollar. If I increase my harvest, I have to hire a crew, which means I only get about half of that. And if I sell wholesale, I might get as little as twenty percent of it." Plus, farmers at farmers markets offer the public value beyond the quality of the produce they are selling, he points out. They get information about the crops, how they were grown, and how to prepare them.

Jennifer McIlvaine shops farmers markets almost every day she can, even on the days when she is not selling her own tasty vittles at one of them. Until March 2005, she was the chef at Asteroid Café in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood. Now, during the peak market season, she makes her living entirely from farmers markets, cooking up gourmet bruschetta for hungry market patrons. Eighty-five to ninety percent of the ingredients she uses she gets from other market vendors. "I have always shopped at farmers markets," said McIlvaine, "and I live right on Ballard Avenue, with the market right outside my door on Sundays. I really wanted to create a product that represented the market as a whole."

Photo: Jennifer McIlvaine, the "Bruschettina", grills up her famous bruschetta at the Columbia City Farmers Market. Photo copyright 2005 by Zachary D. Lyons

You never know whom you will run into at the farmers market. Recently, I ran into Chef Danielle Custer, from the Seattle Art Museum, shopping at Evergreen Station's stand at the Ballard market. "I go to the Ballard Farmers market every week," said Custer. "It makes my week. I get great food. I've made great relationships with growers."

To Custer, buying direct from the farmer is about identifying with local food sources, which helps promote a secure community food system. "If we don't buy local, local won't exist," she says. And it is about trust. "I feel safe when I am buying food from farmers who are my friends," said Custer. "I can look them in the eye and trust them to grow my food. I don't feel safe at grocery stores, with all the health issues related to processed foods, concerns about genetically modified organisms, chemicals, etc. I need pure food." Custer pauses, then says, "My boyfriend went to the farmers market with me and he thought it was too expensive. Then he pulled a week old head of lettuce out of the fridge, and it was still better than anything he could get at the supermarket. He found that he ate less, that it tasted better, and that he felt better after eating it. Because it is so fresh, it is more nutritious and it tastes better."

University District Farmers Market will operate 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Saturdays through February 25^th. It is located at the corner of NE 50^th Street and University Way NE, in Seattle. West Seattle Farmers Market, located at the intersection of SW Alaska Street and California Avenue SW, will operate 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Sundays through February 26^th. Ballard Farmers Market is open all year on Ballard Avenue NW, in Seattle. It operates 11 a.m.-3 p.m. during the winter months. Port Angeles Farmers Market operates year round in the parking lot of the Clallam County Courthouse in Port Angeles. For more information on farmers markets in Washington, and for a complete list of markets statewide, go to www.wafarmersmarkets.com.

Story and Photos by Zachary D. Lyons/February 2006

Zachary D. Lyons is a freelance food and agriculture writer who recently retired after seven years of heading the Washington State Farmers Market Association. He is currently developing a farmer's market operations manual for Washington State University.