2022 Farmers Markets in the Greater Boston Area

I went to the opening of the Davis Square Farmers Market today. They’ve spaced out the stalls so that even though they are fewer in number, they now occupy the full parking lot on Day Street. With additional space lost to the outdoor seating of American Flatbread (operating out of the bowling alley), it was hard to find a place to park. Eventually, I parked on the Cambridge side of the city line and walked to the market.

There’s not much on the stands just yet, and the prices are high: $4.75 for a very small bag of salad greens, $3.50 each for a small bunch of radishes and a head of Boston lettuce, $8 for a pound of asparagus.

But, I’ll support them, till I’m bankrupted. (Speaking of which, I started a cart at the fancy foods purveyor, Regalis, yesterday with all sorts of exotica: spruce tips, nettles, morels, fancy seaweed and the price quickly climbed to $200. I abandoned the cart. In 2020, when I thought there was a chance we might all die within a year, I spent money like crazy on fancy food and drink. But, now that it appears I might have a future, I have to return to planning for it.)

Here’s information on MA farmers markets:

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Thanks for sharing this feedback. This past weekend we visited the Natick market for the first time. I was a bit disappointed - the vendors skewed towards crafts more than food, and there was only one produce stand (and they only had a few kids of leafy greens for sale. I’m hoping that this was because we are still early in the local growing season, maybe? The remainder of the food vendors were selling seafood, meat, dairy, or baked goods (a few of each type), and one stand selling herb plants and flowers. It definitely wasn’t what I was expecting but it’s very convenient for us and held on a Saturday, so I’ll give it another chance in a few weeks.

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Yeah, it’s definitely this. You may want to give it a few months, actually. July is when they will start to have more solid produce.

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Tewksbury doesn’t start theirs until Thursday, June 16th and runs through Sept. 30th. They’re currently listing their 2022 vendors on their FB page on a daily basis, I believe.

“2022 Tewksbury Community Market on Thursday, June 16, 2022, from 4pm to 7pm, at the Livingston Field Recreation Complex (288 Livingston Street)”

When they first started out at the Livingston Field complex, they were very very small, but over the years, they’ve grown it very nicely. For several years after they initially started out, they held it at the Tewksbury Library on Chandler Street in the field next to the library for more visibility. That definitely worked out for them, as they outgrew the spot last year, and there was a backlash regarding the traffic on Chandler, so they moved it back to the Livingston Field complex for the rest of the year. My problem has been it’s SO big that by the time I get there after work (usually around 5:30/6 p.m.), it’s so crowded I couldn’t find a parking space at the library. I’m hoping it’s better/easier access this year on Livingston.

here’s a list from 2021 of their vendors. https://tewksburymarket.com/2021-tewksbury-community-market-vendors/

The 2022 List (so far) from their FB page (Not appearing at all weekly markets):

Tewksbury Honey
KC Styles Accessories
Soak It In Artisan Soap
Cupcake City
Shiny Things
Bittersweet Herb Farm
Purple Carrot Bread
Slippery Soap Company
Naturel Juicing
Usborne Books & More
KRM Chocolates
Straingley Handmade
Sunnyhill Candle Company
Fudge 'N Stuff
Chaos & Curls Design
Seafood Expres
Craic Sauce
Bird’s Nest Italian Street Food
Tewksbury Public Library’s Community Garden
Grateful Tastes
Drive-By Pies Bake Shop
Kiss The Cook (mac & cheese to go)

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It’s true it’s early in the season, and this is New England with a comparatively short growing season, and July is the beginning of the huge produce infusion, but I’ve learned over the last few years that more produce tends to come in every week after opening week, depending on the recent weather as well as harvest cycles.

I was very surprised and pleasantly so to see asparagus from Kimball Farm at the opening day of Union Square market last Saturday. Last year it came in later. It’s expensive but so worth it. I also saw great fresh herbs, rhubarb, scallions, Asian leafy greens in addition to various salad greens. It’s lovely to see sorrel and tarragon, for example. Green garlic will be coming in soon and then strawberries, in addition to other greens and lots of radishes.

Union Square has Hutchins, Kimball, Drumlin, Freedom Food, and Brookford farms with my favorite Flats Mentor coming in June.

It’s also an interesting challenge for me to figure out how to use rhubarb in savory dishes, for example. I use Eat Your Books to find recipes with various combinations of ingredients.

It’s worth checking out every week to see what’s new if it’s not a major trek for you.

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Kimball is everywhere, and they were at Davis yesterday. Their asparagus was very good (I roasted some last night), but their preformed bunches contain an annoying mix of stalks of different thicknesses, which makes them hard to cook evenly.
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Flats Mentor is great! I’ve purchased from them in the past (Wakefield FM, IIRC) and they were so nice and so willing to tell me how to use a new-to-me produce item they had grown.

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You hit the nail on the head. May is super early in our local growing season.

Leafy greens and asparagus are about it at the moment. Rhubarb if a farm grows it. Radishes as the weather warms. Some farmers may have root crops like garlic, beets, potatoes, or carrots they have wintered over.

Spring eggs are great as the longer days make for happy, productive hens. (I buy eggs from a small farm down the street, which is where I hear about “the ladies.”)

If you see mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm, those are local and grown indoors year round. Farmer Elizabeth and her crew sometimes sell to a number of other farms, like North of Boston and Farmer Dave’s. I’m a fan girl of Fat Moon because I so adore mushrooms.

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More savory rhubarb for you:

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On this subject, let me plug E.L. Silvia, a farm that used to operate at the Harvard University farmers market on Tuesdays for many years, till they stopped before the pandemic. Much of their stuff (tomatoes, corn, and suchlike) was excellent, but their peaches were spectacular – juicy, sweet, complex. Then, one year (2018 or '19) something went wrong and the peaches we brought home a few times were all infested at the core with tiny insects. The next year they were not at Harvard. They operate at several other farmers markets, and I’m assuming they’ve fixed the infestation issue. I’d try one peach, and open it on the spot. If it’s OK, get a dozen. You can thank me later.

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Hi @fooddabbler, I am curious if you’ve made that koresh rivas recipe? I think we may still have some rhubarb growing out back that I choose to ignore (old garden). I am not a fan of rhubarb but something like that savory stew might appeal to me.

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No, but it’s very tempting. I’ve made other Persian beany dishes with pomegranate and suchlike, but I stumbled upon this one more recently. I’ll let you go first on it.

Lazy guy that I am, I was first going to try the sheet-pan chicken & rhubarb recipe. I do a lot of sheet-panned chicken these days, mainly for Comacho, our 19+ year-old cat who loves roasted chicken thighs, especially the crisp skin. I set out six thighs on a bed of varying veggies (potatoes, at one time, thickly sliced onions another, or thickly cut radicchio, or okra, or often a combo, with cherry tomatoes scattered around – all tossed with salt and one or the other of the many chile flakes/powders that fill our household). Four of the thighs are spiced under the skin, the other two are simply salted for Comacho. I then blast at 480. Forty minutes later, he gets the salted chicken thighs, chopped (with his meds cleverly embedded in the fatty flesh - although he sometimes grabs a piece in his teeth and shakes it vigorously till the tablet falls out). We get the spiced thighs and the veg (the veg sometimes broiled for a few more minutes to get the tops crisp).

Voila, dinner for cat and human, in one toaster-oven assay.

(For variety on the off-chicken days, Comacho gets either butter-poached salmon, or fancy canned tuna in olive oil.)

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If I see mushrooms - there was actually a mushroom table at the Natick market. However, I despise mushrooms and so it didn’t even register! :sweat_smile:

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I’ll keep that in mind - I don’t mind a bit of a weekend trek if we have the schedule flexibility and if I know it’s a good farmers market!

I know you asked for savory rhubarb recipes, but the bluebarb (blueberry-rhubarb) lime crumble pie in Midwest Made is fantastic, if you (or anyone!) is looking for an idea of what to bake with rhubarb. I can see the recipe in Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=NLGGDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT6&lpg=PT6&dq=midwest+made+bluebarb+lime+crumble+pie&source=bl&ots=W1JTZ3u2vM&sig=ACfU3U2qAcIuaVAZFy6zbPvuWDictIk-Yg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiOzNOLw-z3AhVNnOAKHYLaBBYQ6AF6BAg2EAM#v=onepage&q=midwest%20made%20bluebarb%20lime%20crumble%20pie&f=false and it appears to be indexed in EYB as well.

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