Farmer's Market

Now that it's May, I can resume my favorite away-from-home activity - browsing the farmer's market! Everyone has their favorite garden centers and specialty plant growers that they shop for the everyday stuff, but this is where the adventuring is.

We are extremely blessed in Minneapolis and St. Paul to have large, active farmer's markets. In St. Paul, all vendors must be members of the Grower's Association and all commodities offered must be grown or made within 50 miles of St. Paul. In Minneapolis the situation is a little different. There is a section with rules similar to those in St. Paul, and a privately owned section across the street that rents space without such restrictions. That gives the larger whole a very different flavor. The last few summers there has even been a local group that specializes in music of the Andes who set up in the free area and serenaded on weekends to sell their CD's. All this adds up to a wonderful carnival atmosphere where I can shop for plants!

Many small specialty growers come here in spring to sell their inventory. It works wonderfully for us all. In such a large metropolitan area, the growing places are far out and scattered. Finding all these little niche growers would be next to impossible. (Besides, how would they advertise?) As I go down the aisles I always find something terrific. Some of the vendors still offer the robust, field-dug clumps of backbone perennials like iris, daylilies and peonies that that I remember from before the advent of the plastic nursery pot. One of my favorite growers, who owns Countryside Gardens in Delano, MN, offers his daylilies and peonies that way. His stock is excellent and his list is long, but his facility is so far out of the Cities that he prefers to market here rather than maintain a retail outlet there. Another grower I like to buy from has grown most of her plants in her own yard. She is of northern European origin and grows many of the plants she grew up with, so I have bought wonderful varieties of hardy primrose from her that are not being commercially produced in Minnesota.

Another great aspect to this shopping is that I can talk to the grower. Who better to tell me what the individual quirks and greatnesses of each variety are? I can ask anything I can think of that I might need or want to know about them. There is also that conversational element that you often find in flea markets too: "My grandmother used to have some of those!" and "What ever happened to the double version of that flower that I used to buy?" It is a great place to start the search for something you can't find anywhere too. Just ask as you shop and sooner or later someone will say "I may know someone who has that" - and you are off and running, because that "someone" will know "someone else" etc.

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