On Wednesday at noon, the Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers Market ends its nearly four-decade long run in the east parking lot of the Santa Rosa Veterans Building, located at the corner of Brookwood and Maple Ave., across from the fairgrounds.
The Wednesday market opens, as it always has, at 8:30 a.m. Participating vendors include DeSantis Farms, with an array of familiar and rare citrus and other fruits; Schetelwitz Family Farm, which has the season’s first apricots, nectarines and plums; Bohemian Well Being Farm, with specialty mushrooms; Ortiz Farm, with a huge array of seasonal vegetables and flowers; Armstrong Valley Farm, with beautiful lettuces, eggs, potatoes and more; Hector Alvarez, with honey, garlic, dried chiles, fresh favas and more, and Ridgeview Farm, with delicate French breakfast radishes, beautiful lettuces, arugula and fresh bouquets.
Triple T Farm attends, too, and they currently have plant starts, fresh herbs, lettuce, favas and eggs.
Neufeld Farms has dried fruits and nuts.
Min-Hee Hill Farm of Sebastopol is harvesting gorgeous lettuces right now and may have other mid-spring crops, including plant starts.
Skyview Nursery has a lot of plant starts, including tomatoes.
Mi Fiesta has tamales, enchiladas, tortillas and salsas to take home and tamales to enjoy on the spot.
Full Circle Baking provides bread, Santa Rosa Seafood is the fish vendor, Edgeworks will sharpen your knives while you shop and if you need caffeine, there’s plenty to be had from Run Around Brew.
Each of the farmers attending this market will likely have more than I’ve been able to list here. Because of an early-morning all-day commitment, I was not able to attend the Saturday market and the season’s harvest is now coming on so fast that, when you miss a day, you often miss the start of yet another spring crop. We’ve gone over a watershed, harvest-wise. Even a few weeks ago, it felt like “c’mon, spring, hurry up.” Now it’s happening so fast it’s hard to keep up. This is a good thing: The abundant season has arrived.
As of this Saturday, May 19, the market has new digs in the southeast parking lot of the former Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, or LBC, as many locals still call the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts (50 Mark West Springs Rd., Santa Rosa). The hours, 8:30 a.m. to noon on Wednesdays and 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturdays, will remain the same, with market manager Paula Downing at the helm.
There’s a lot of conflicting information about the reasons for the change in location. Lesley Brabyn of Salmon Creek Ranch spoke about the issue on my radio show, Mouthful, on April 29. Lesley is the media spokesperson for the market and you can listen to my interview with her here.
