The Windsor Certified Farmers Market opened for the season last Sunday, May Day, on the Town Green. Open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., this market continues through December 18. (A Thursday evening market opens in mid-June.)
Grandma's Eggs, sold, presumably, by Grandpa
Ridgeview Farm with its spring harvest
As is the case at all of our farmers markets these days, the Windsor Market is a great source for eggs. Grandma’s Farm Fresh Brown Eggs of Healdsburg has beautiful eggs in a lovely range of pastel colors. Ridgeview Farm also has eggs, along with their gorgeous breakfast radishes, crisp arugula, flowers and plump heads of butter lettuce.
Parsons Homegrown of Fulton, best know for their greenhouse tomatoes, was on hand with carrots and lemons as well as their beefsteak tomatoes.
One of the market’s new vendors, Joey Smith of Let’s Go Farm, is young and engagingly passionate about farming. Currently, he has organic plant starts, along with greens, green garlic and a blackboard with an e. e. cummings’ poem about spring. What a joy to see new farmers like this.
As we all know, now is the time to plant tomatoes and you’ll find great starts here. Dan Magnuson of Soda Rock Farm, whose tomatoes are praised by all who taste them, has a big selection, along with Armenian cucumber, Black Beauty eggplant and a number of other starts.
Singing Frog Farms is selling tomato starts, too, with photos and descriptions of their varieties posted at the stand so you’ll know just what you’re getting. The farm also has eggs and lettuce.
Let's Go Farm's Joey Smith, an inspired and inspiring young farmer
La Vida Buena Nursery is offering a great variety of starts, including tomatoes, beets, zucchini and Cinderella pumpkins.
Kimberly Cook Fallon of Cook’s Spices got her start here last year and so is particularly fond of this market. If you haven’t discovered her spices and spice blends yet, check them out the next time you have a chance. She makes unique blends she and her husband, who met when they both worked in a restaurant, have created.
Russian River Fine Foods offers a line of handcrafted sauces, including smoky barbecue sauce, chipotle sauce and a roasted garlic teriyaki sauce. A new vendor, Cerda Sisters Homemade Pasta of Calistoga, has handmade ravioli.
Familiar vendors, those you would expect to see here, returned for opening day: Panorama Baking Company, currently located in San Francisco but founded in the 1990s in Petaluma, provides rustic hearth breads; Santa Rosa Seafood offers its enormous selection of fish and shellfish, Nicki’s Flour Creations offers cookies, breakfast pastries and more and Spring Hill Cheese Co. has its huge array of cheeses and its beautiful delicious butter.
The Windsor Farmers Market has always been as much an arts, crafts and street fair as it is a farmers market. This is very evident at the first market of the season, before the spring harvest is in full swing. There’s a new Kettle Corn vendor. There’s art, cards, jewelery and pottery, including from Architectural Ceramic Design, a longtime favorite of mine. I particularly love their porcelain bowls with ridges perfect for grating garlic or ginger.
Glenda Castelli is the manager of the Windsor Farmers Market, which takes place every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the east side of the Town Green. The next market celebrates mothers and chocolate in honor of Mother’s Day.
Although Parsons Homegrown is best known for their greenhouse beefsteak tomatoes, they also have other produce, including lemons and carrots
