In the past year or so, my fiancee and I have been going to our local farmers market from time to time for a multitude of reasons. There’ve been times we just wanted to check out who was there and what was going on. At other times, we just wanted to take the dog along with us to meet other dogs and have a snack in the morning. And even other times we went solely to gather a good amount of groceries for the week.
One thing is for certain, though. We love going to farmers markets now, and that’s a fact. There’s nothing cooler than experiencing your own local culture and vendors. Being able to talk with the farmers and vendors about their products, how they treat their animals, what they grow their produce with, and more is something you won’t get anywhere else. There’s no option to do that when you go to a Kroger or Walmart or Meijer. There’s no one there to answer your questions, inform you on their products, and quell any concerns you may have.
But at a farmers market, all of those things happen and more.
Sometimes you’ll get people saying how it’s more expensive and that they don’t like that. Price is an understandable reason to stray away from these things, but I cannot vouch enough for the freshness and taste of all of the products I’ve already had at my farmers market. It’s unparalleled, and it’s great to know I’m supporting local vendors instead of people or companies that do the best they can to undercut competitors, pay their workers lower wages, and worse.
One thing I know that my partner and I can do in future to help ourselves have an easier time, though, is bringing along a few cheap moving boxes. Sometimes when we bring our reusable bag, there’s not enough room for all the different types of produce we end up walking away with. I think it would help to have a few cheap moving boxes to carry our produce around in, which we can then put in our vehicle once we head out. Too often I find bigger vegetables crushing smaller ones, and I think it’s important to keep certain things separate.
Regardless of how we handle these problems, I know that we’ll be making a point to go back to our local market every Saturday when given the chance. We simply connect too much with the people, the atmosphere, and the food we come away with.
