Don’t you love a Farmer’s market? My favorite one in town is open for the season, and the bonus is that it isn’t far from the quilt show venue. If you come to the show, on your way home, stop by the Johnson Family Farms produce stand on the corner of Kanuga and Erkwood. Right behind the stand is a big field planted with all kinds of vegetables. Talk about fresh from the field!
They have a section with homemade food items, baked goods and local honey.
Heirloom tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, little grape tomatoes, and big beefsteak tomatoes vie for my attention. I wanted to take the entire rack home.
This is the market where I got the three color tomatoes for my Tomato Tian last year at the State Fair. Download a pdf of the recipe – Tricolor Tomato Tian.
For new readers, I won third place at the Mountain State Fair with that recipe.
Yellow summer squashes were beautiful alongside fresh green okra and cucumbers, and deep purple eggplants.
These peppers are just begging to be stuffed with ground beef and baked with cheese.
My photo of their colorful peppers last year won third place in the photography contest at the Mountain State Fair.
Here’s what I got this time. I nabbed one of the last pints of strawberries available, their aroma was mouthwatering. I will be stopping by again one day this week after my work at the quilt show. With such gorgeous tomatoes available, I see a tomato pie in the near future.
If you do a really good job with cleaning the seeds and jelly out of the tomatoes, and drain them for at least 12 hours, you get a pie that doesn’t have water in the bottom or a soggy bottom crust. Here’s my recipe – Carole’s Tomato Pie
Next visit, I’ll get some of the yellow ones. Nothing like several thick slices on toasted sourdough bread with mayo and a bit of bacon.
Or a stacked tomato salad with mozzarella cheese, a bit of avocado and cracked black pepper.
Just to have a bit of quilting on this post, here’s my Farmer’s Market Picnic Quilt. It is lots of different blocks, joined together with just rectangles of food prints.
It won a third place at the Mountain State Fair in 2014.
So, on to the quilt show. I’ll try to bring you some of that on Friday.
Do you have a favorite farmer’s market?
From My Carolina Home 
This may be my son’s friend Kirby Johnson’s farmers market..it does look good enough to eat and you do seem to make delicious use of it
We have Farm Market on Saturday with many vendors. I’ve gotten to know one vendor and they also sell “make your own bouquets”. I go rummage sailing in our part of town on Thursday mornings and if I find nice colored vases I pick them up then we swap vases for vegetables.
Those yellow squash look delicious. They remind me to make another Vegetable Galette. The recipe is from Valerie Bertinelli’s new cookbook “Indulge” and is made with yellow squash, zucchini, and cherry tomatoes. It is wonderful!
Oh everything looked delicious and I know you will make something tasty with your purchases. Great blog post Carole! You really know how to “mix a story” and “set a table” . Have a great quilt show and don’t wear yourself out!
That looks like an enjoyable farm stand to visit – lots of colorful and enticing veggies! Our favorite farmer’s market is run by the county we live in and takes place every Saturday at the courthouse. There won’t be much local produce here, though, until probably June. Have a great week, Carole!
My favorite farmer’s market is the one outside my house in our garden! LOL!!! We, and 7 of my husband’s siblings have homes (and gardens) on the family’s 256 acre farm. Unfortunately, our gardens have just been planted–WV crops are not as early as our southern neighbors. In a few weeks I’ll visit a farmer’s market a half hour away set to open the end of the month—he travels to North Carolina to bring us an early bounty. I never tire of your food photographs…they always look good enough to eat! Blessings, Carole!
I enjoyed your words and all the photos.
One of your pictures showed exactly what I bought at the farm stand near me. I indulged in tomatoes, one onion, and one yellow squash.
My farm market ‘just around the corner’ opened the week before Mother’s Day – good timing to sell all those hanging baskets of flowers. Not much local produce here yet, fields are getting tilled now. At my show quilters are dropping off quilts for judging this evening, the remainder come in tomorrow & I’ll be there with open arms to receive them.
There is a market in downtown Rochester, NY. I like to go on the week-end. It is very crowded. There are meats/veggies/fruit/specialty oils & vinegars.
I love farmers markets — any market, anywhere. The up-north markets evolve as the summer goes on and the produce gets better (June and July are pretty awful, except for cherries and a few of the ground veggies.) September is fabulous. Your picnic quilt is wonderful. I love it!
What beautiful fruit and vegetables. I haven’t been to any of the farmers’ markets in the area yet. I will definitely add Johnson’s to the top of the list. See you Friday!
Surprise…I just realized my HandmadeBookclub..is having an auction of handmade books for your Safelight project. If I knew how to send the link I would but…