I just got back from a trip to Montpelier to visit my sister, and as luck would have it, it was farmer’s market day. Having horribly miscalculated our vegetable needs, we are beginning to run out of all the storage crops we carefully laid in a couple of months ago. We are out of onions and beets, and nearly out of garlic and potatoes. The carrots-packed-in-leaves experiment did not go well; maybe if we had a more humid root cellar the carrots would be crisper, but our cold pantry is bone dry and our carrots are less than perky.
I could have spent much more time and money at the market, but I was on a tight schedule, and veggies were my priority. I walked straight past the vendors offering cheese samples, frozen meats, and tempting baked goods. Veggies were on display in abundance; winter squashes, carrots, beets, turnips, onions, shallots, garlic, fresh sprouts, potatoes, sweet potatoes (!), red & green cabbages, kale, brussels sprouts, frozen berries. Wow.
I left the market with a good supply of roots to sustain us for a few more weeks.
A monthly winter farmer’s market has started up this year in Lyndon. The November market was great, with tomatoes, lots of salad greens, and storage vegetables available, along with meat, eggs, baked goods, canned goods, and crafts. Unfortunately, the December market had few veggies available: spinach and lettuce were all we could find. According to Cathy Paris, organizer extraordinaire, local farmers are already planning to expand next year’s late-season growing now that they see there is a demand. I’m hopeful that, while the Lyndon market might never be as huge as Montpelier’s, Northeast Kingdom residents will be able to buy local produce year-round in the future.
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