Farmers market tourist

Hillcrest farmers market

June is a busy summer month with lots of activities, summer produce and vacations.  It's the beginning of peak seasonal crops at local farmers markets and what better way to experience the flavor of summer than to take advantage of local produce.  One of my favorite thing to do is combining traveling/vacation time with my love of farmers markets by checking out farmers markets at the places I travel to.  This June I made two trips with my family, one to Little Rock, AR and also to North Carolina where I also visited Norfolk, VA and the Outer Banks.  We went to 2 different farmers markets on each trip and I'm sharing my pictures and experiences on this post.  My oldest daughter, Tabitha, was with me on both trips and called me a farmers market tourist. I loved it so making that the title of this post.

We visited family in Little Rock, AR the third weekend in June.  Before going, I looked up farmer's markets online and found 2.  Hillcrest Farmers market on 2200 Kavanaugh Blvd on the sidewalk in front of Pulaski Heights Baptist Church.  It's open on Saturday mornings from 7 to 12.  It's medium sized with a great variety of vendors, probably somewhere around 20  (I didn't count). It was really similar to the Lawton's Farmer's market but without food trucks, although there was a small coffee truck.  It was mainly local farmers with produce, flowers, baked goods, local honey, homemade hummus, and more.  I bought honey, rolls, corn on the cob, tomatoes, pickles, flowers and fresh pinto beans plus several kinds of fruit.  We had a blast there, visiting with various vendors and it was our favorite because it was more local. My daughter and I both had on Oklahoma T shirts and several vendors noticed so asked questions as to what brought us there and were thrilled that we'd chosen to visit them on our trip. We really enjoyed this one and took a lot of pictures.  They had tomatoes as big at Tabitha's hand and so many fresh flowers.




 

River Market by Riverfront park

The second Little Rock farmer's market we visited was the River Market in an open air pavilion overlooking Riverfront Park in the downtown area.  It's open Saturdays from 7 until 3.  It was much larger with more commercial vendors, crafts, local products plus produce. It was fun and we bought granola and local rice mixes but liked the Hillcrest one better. It had a lot more commercial feeling instead of local but was glad that we checked it out. We did enjoy walking around Riverfront park and looking at the Arkansas river.






5 Points Community farm market

The 4th week of June my oldest daughter, Tabitha, and I flew to North Carolina to visit my youngest daughter, Aubree, who lives in Hertford about an hour away from the Outer Banks.  She is a travel occupational therapist who contracts through the company she works for with facilities all over the US moving every 3 to 6 months.  I've passed my love of farmers markets on to my girls so Aubree always finds local markets at every place she lives. She found an indoor farmers market in Norfolk, VA an hour from her called Five Points Community Farm Market. It was open Thurs through Sunday during the day but sadly it closed this month.  We went on a Friday and ate lunch at their café with local ingredients which was fantastic plus did some shopping. They had a great little spice shop where the owner made her own spice blends so I bought several spices.  I only bought produce that we could eat on our trip, mainly fruit since we were flying home.  It was a lot of fun walking around and seeing what they had plus Aubree shopped for herself.





5 Points community farm market I loved this cute



Edenton farmers market                                                                                         yummy lunch at 5 Points

The final farmers market I went to on my travels was on a Saturday and Aubree took me to her favorite local farmers market in Edenton, NC about 30 minutes from her home.  It's open on Saturdays during the summer months from 8 to noon. It was rather small (10 to 15 vendors) but they did have a nice variety of local meat, eggs, cheese, homemade soap, plants and produce. I bought homemade soap to take back with me and fruit to eat on our trip.  Again, with flying home my purchases were limited but we enjoyed visiting with the vendors and Aubree introducing us to her favorite ones which is always fun.

Edenton farmers market

I hope I have inspired you to become a farmers market tourist and check out local farmers markets wherever your travels take you. I have found it easy to just type farmers market and the city I'm visiting online and find the information I need. Next month my family and I will be traveling to Meridian MS for a family reunion and the Meridian farmers market is on our agenda.

Enjoy,

Bamah

 

lovely plants at Edenton