Bill's Broadsides

Viva la Farmers Market

Let there be much rejoicing: Our local farmers markets have started to open for the season!

I understand the Canajoharie market opened this past Saturday, and the Gloversville market will open this Saturday morning, May 17. 

I'm particularly excited about the Gloversville market, because it will be in its new location with an open-air pavilion between Bleecker and Elm streets downtown. Judge Vincent DeSantis deserves a huge pat on the back for all his work on the project. He put up the pavilion by the sweat of his own brow and with some state grant funds and the help of several hearty volunteers.

Being a Johnstown resident, I'm jealous of Gloversville folks -- Gloversvillains, I've heard them called :) -- because their farmers market has a prime time and place: Saturday mornings in a downtown spot with lots of parking and room for the vendors to spread out. The Johnstown market is hard for me to get to, because it happens on Tuesday afternoons when I'm generally at work, and it's in a slightly awkward, cramped spot outside the former Johnstown Hotel (now an office complex) on Main Street. But both cities are lucky to have active markets for the season, and Amsterdam is doubly lucky because it has two market sites.  

Check out this link for a schedule of farmers markets in the Glove Cities and Amsterdam: http://www.localharvest.org/farmers-markets/M21037  (The Canjo market will be open Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the parking lot of the Arkell Museum.)

And patronize them! Buying locally produced goods is one of the keys to a stronger local economy, and fresh, locally grown foods simply taste better.

My sources tell me that some yahoo from Johnstown will be at the Gloversville market pavilion from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, playing acoustic folk music and dodging rotten (but organic!) tomatoes. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

(P.S., Watch out for those Mohawk Valley-grown peppers -- They're Red Hot!)