I’m in Seattle for a few days. Was so excited to find a farmers market which I feel like only people on here would care about haha. Was surprised they had a lot of unique varieties and all were labeled. It also confirms for me that I don’t want to bother growing any plums as I feel even the best plums are bland in comparison to plum apricot hybrids.
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Thursday nights. Downtown San Luis Obispo, CA.
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Where is this one? I wanna seeeee!
This was AG family farm at the Capitol Hill farmers market (Sunday and Tuesday) but it seems they visit the other farmers markets in Seattle as well.
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If you get a chance the University District Farmers Market is well worth the visit.
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My family loves going to all farmers’ markets. Wherever we travel, we check out farmers’ markets when we can. This is how you learn what locals are growing.
Unfortunately, even at farmers’ markets, fruit were picked a tad too early. Those Honey Punch were too red/underripe. Ripened ones are darker than that.
My friends bought Saturn donuts at $5 a lb from a farmer’s market. Still, barely sweet from under ripe fruit.
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Absolutely! I did grad school in Iowa and miss the Des Moines farmers market to this day. It is epic. I go to Indianapolis often, and the farmers markets there have some gems. The Park City, UT market is tiny but good. Got to know Weeks berries that I posted about because such good fruit! Great melons at that market too. Utah growers all seemed to do well with Green Gage, neat to try and learn about. Some stone fruits were clearly picked too early and never properly ripened on the counter, others were amazing. Midwest markets have been my favorite- even really small ones when I was training somewhere obscure- there might be less than 10 vendors total, but they all had incredible produce. The best was always from the homesteading families. The DC metro farmers markets I don’t bother with: sadly, they’re mostly food trucks/prepared food/crafts.
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Agreed, sadly that is the way that the local farmers market here has gone as well. I recall when we first moved to this area it was a bunch of old-timers who just pulled their pickup trucks loaded with the vegetables that they grew on their local farm/homestead off of the road and onto the shoulder at the agreed upon corner of the crossroads where a large city park is.
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That is how the "Farmer’s Market’ is here as well. A bunch of folks selling new stuff that is not all fresh. If even produce.
Ironically the farmers and produce sellers off of trucks are at the Flea Market.
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If it’s a place that has fresh mangos in season it’s one of the highlights of the trip. Tree ripened and they are unbelievably good, especially compared to what’s available is US supermarkets.
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No. Around here they are mostly crafts and baking. Very little good. In the supermarkets the stone fruit is garbage more or less. Sure, if I was traveling, I might look in to see what they got at the farmers markets.
About 20 years ago local farmers markets were better. In the early 1990s they had some white peaches that were fantastic. The seller was old and retired a year later. His son took over for a few years and then quit. The old timers had some good stuff, but they are all dead or gone now.
I would never buy $5 a pound plums anyway. A little too rich for my blood. If I was rich, then sure, I’d pay $10 a pound and would not care. I’m more of a $1.50 - $2 a pound person with my budget. The cost of living has skyrocketed with no end in sight. I’m old, so it is not a case of working more jobs to make more $ either.
At one time I had a bunch of plum trees of all sorts. Shiro, Santa Rosa, Green Gage and more. All got black knot and had to be cut down. That is how it is in the Rustbelt with plums. The Green Gage and Shiro were stupendous when they had their day.
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Here it is in Crete, Greece. Apologise not a great picture, it seems the only picture I took at that market.
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Or mislabeled. The Honey Punch may be right but doesn’t look like what I remember. That’s clearly not Flavor King. FK doesn’t have a pointed tip. And the Flavor Royale looks a lot more like Flavor Grenade.
I will agree that in general pluots are better than plums.
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Hmm. Ironically the “honey punch” were in the plum section and not labeled as pluots. They were definitely felt soft enough to be ripe and were really good.
That’s disappointing they were mislabeled. All the pluots were really good.
The farmers markets here in the Hudson valley are pretty good overall but more geared towards veggies and apples and heirloom tomatoes. Despite having a ton of apple orchards you can’t really find a lot of other tree fruits. One time a found a local farm selling yellow plums. They got annoyed at me for asking what variety it was as but most likely was a Shiro. Looks nice but imo super bland
To get pluots in NY you can usually only get them from Trader Joe’s or the local higher quality grocery store. Not sure the variety but at least one looks like dapple dandy. I believe all are from Family Tree
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Just stopped by Sosio’s in pike place market. Well known fruit stand but definitely a bit of a tourist trap with those prices. I chuckled they call them flavor king plums instead of pluots. Good but probably a bit too sweet. Tasted like candy. Prefer what the other place had.
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I miss the Arnett Farms pluots at the Irvine, CA farmer’s market. I think they go to L.A. sometimes too… someone should go so I can live vicariously through them…
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I just went to the farmers market in Hilo on big island. Pretty good produce. Nothing super unique I haven’t had elsewhere. Good sumo/dekopon mandarins. Apple bananas, which pretty much taste like regular bananas. I got some yellow mangoes which I was told is a Thai mango but seems similar to honey mangoes I’ve had in the past. Honey sweet with a bit of an astringent taste at the end.
They did have some Asian pears so I’m not sure how local all the produce is. Driving around I see a ton of citrus trees in peoples yards, less so the other stuff.
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Georgia State markets are not as full of fruit/produce vendors as in the past. I am ok with yard sale type vendors. But these days cheap new junk is flooding them.
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