This market has been running for 35 years and the city closes off one of it's main streets to hold it on Saturday mornings. As we walked in from the side I couldn't believe how many people were at a farmers market in a town of 24,000 people.
As we walked up and down the street we saw everything from flowers, fruits and vegetables to hand-blown glass, woodworking, jewelry and clothing. And we saw lots of people.
I had no idea how much produce would be in season at this market and was extremely impressed with the selection of produce, and (from a customer's viewpoint) the prices. And apples....I think we could have found just about any variety of apple we ever would have wanted. We ended up buying organic apples from Tonnemaker Farm in Washington. Holy cow, did they have apples.
We also bought a little raw milk cheese from a farmer selling RAW MILK. Apparently under a "small producer exemption" it's legal to sell raw milk at the markets in Idaho. I wish that were the case in Arkansas!
One neat thing we saw was that a few of the booths had a sign in front of them telling how many miles from the market their food was grown. I found that interesting and thought I might need to add that to my market booth. There is no doubt that the most common question I answer at the market is how far our farm is from the market.
I absolutely wish the three Saturday morning Little Rock markets (technically, Argenta is North Little Rock but its only a few blocks from the River Market which is not far from the Hillcrest market) could find a way to consolidate and hold an event like this. I was really impressed.
get what we want and its off to the next thing. We never slow down to look around or talk to the farmers but we will be surprised about the vast amount of knowledge they have concerning their products agrotis
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