Are you one of those folks who scramble to pack up the kids and dog and race to make sure you make it to the market before noon?
Or someone who is there bright and early each Saturday and wandering the market to peruse the produce before the vendors are even done setting up? Or maybe you can only manage to make it to the market once a month for a coffee and a scone.
Some visitors who come to the market are there to shop. They have come and gone with their groceries before many people get out of bed, and some linger, listening to the entertainer, meeting up with friends and getting growing advice or cooking tips from farmers.
The relationships that are nurtured at the market between vendors and customers are part of what make the Market so different from the grocery store. Everything that’s sold at the Comox Valley Farmers Market is grown or produced in the Comox or Strathcona regional districts.
So when you buy your carrots from Moss at Merville Organics, or chicken from Joyce and Bill of Celiam Acres, or rush to get the first peas or strawberries of the season, you are helping preserve farmland and create sustainable food systems that provide access to healthy fresh food for our families, year round.
When food is grown sustainably and harvested ripe, at most the day before market and at best, the morning of, the health value in that food is tremendous, vastly different from anything shipped, or stored in a large supermarket.
Savvy shoppers recognize that there is much more value for their family in a fresh head of lettuce or a pint of blueberries from the farmers market — they are still fresh a week later in the fridge (if they last that long)!
Whatever kind of market visitor you are, the farmers' market appreciates the effort you make to come out and support your local vendors.
Every year on the last weekend of summer, in the peak growing season, the Comox Valley Farmers Market invites all of their patrons to come and spend some time celebrating the relationships made at the market.
This week, McClintocks Farm will harvest a whole lot of corn to share, and Bill and his team will cook it up to share. Head down and enjoy some corn on the cob and celebrate in the bounty of this Valley.
The farmers' market runs every Saturday year round, from 9 a.m. to noon, April to Oct. 26, at the Comox Valley Exhibition Grounds and then back into the Native Sons Hall until April.
— Comox Valley Farmers' Market