A Visit to St. Mary's Farmers Market

Mr Ferdzy and I drive down to Windsor almost every month to visit his mother, who is now residing there. This time, we stopped in St Mary's and spent 2 nights there as a mini-vacation. Our final night was Friday, so we stopped by the farmers market very briefly on Saturday morning.

It's been a while since I've done a market visit! Partly because once you are growing most of your own vegetables, the appeal does wane and partly because we have been so busy these last few years. I do miss them though.

St Mary's farmers market is fairly small, but seems like a particularly nice market nevertheless. It starts at 8:00 am Saturday mornings between Victoria Day weekend and Halloween (aka the end of October). Most markets seem to stop after Thanksgiving so that's a nice little bonus 2 weeks.

This fun little sign advertising all things chicken (plus dog treats and garlic) caught my eye.

The last (getting there, anyway) of the peaches next to the first of the apples, plus pears, plums, and other fruits at this stand. Even without the neon labels they'd be very colourful.

These vegetables are almost as colourful. Perky greens, purple kohlrabi, a rainbow of peppers, beans, beets, garlic, shallots, summer squash, and there was even some of the elusive fennel bulbs.

Immigrants have done wonderful things for Canadian food in my lifetime and it seems at the moment that many farmers markets have a Syrian family selling their home-made dishes. That's what I call a win-win situation.

Corn! Haven't seen very much of it this year - mind you I haven't been looking since I shouldn't eat it - and potatoes. Hm, shouldn't eat them either. That leaves carrots, tomatoes, and what looks like homemade jams. Which I shouldn't be eating... oh well, more for the rest of you.

Big bunches of flowers give the fruits and vegetables a run for the title of "most colourful". Okay, I think they win!

Even the picnic tables got little arrangements.

Gladiolas - the quintessential end-of-summer flower. Wow!

Some really magnificent melons next to sign for a whole array of intriguing fruits and vegetables, behind them all kinds of pasture-raised pork products.

Okay, some canning I could eat! I think this company is based in London.

And finally, the one thing we actually bought - some 100% rye bread from Breadtopia. We've been eating it all week and it is amazing! The rest of the baking looked really lovely but less like things I could eat.

It hardly seems fair - not only is St. Mary's a beautiful little town in a very attractive setting with lots of walking and hiking in the area, they have an impressively good farmers market for their size. Now we wish we lived much closer. If you are nearby, it's definitely a market that should be checked out.

Posted in: Ontario Food