Minnesota Prairie Roots

Faribault Farmers' Market

The arrow on the battered yellow sign at the corner of Second Avenue Northwest and Sixth Street Northwest points west, directing traffic on this Saturday morning toward the Faribault Farmers’ Market in Central Park. Here vendors have unfolded the legs of card tables and banquet tables and spread the bounties of the land and of their handiwork in this temporary marketplace.

I have arrived here late this morning because I slept in. But the choices remain plentiful.

Piles of prolific pale summer squash and zucchini.  Bundles of beets. Hefty heads of purple and green cabbage. Ruby red jams and jellies. Raspberries. Slender pickled beans crammed inside glass jars. Onions, stripped of their papery skins. Baby potatoes. And more.

Amber-colored maple syrup and golden honey.

Packages of cookies and kolacky. Apple and zucchini breads. Seven layer bars.

A jumble of beaded bling splayed on a silver tray. Knit caps in vibrant hues. Woven rugs. Homemade clothespin bags swaying in the gentle breeze. Birdhouses.

They have come here, these crafters and bakers and tenders of the earth, to sell that which they’ve reaped, that which they’ve created.

(The Faribault Farmers’ Market is open seasonally from 1:30 p.m. – 5 p.m. on Wednesdays and from 7 a.m. – noon on Saturdays at Central Park. Watch for a follow-up blog featuring individual vendors.)

Cabbage

Caps

Onions

Rugs