Sweetness of life found in a summer farmers market

Because of my schedule, I’m not always able to partake of the wonderful Wisconsin summer ritual of attending a farmers market. Truth be told, I’m either out of town or unable to get up at the crack of dawn to grab the best of the pick. I’m also only buying for me, and it seems like a lot of work to go outside to check out what is mostly vegetables, of which I’m not especially fond.

As luck would have it, last weekend was our nation’s birthday and a local farmer set up her roadside market on a Thursday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. to capture the northbound traffic of the holiday weekend. I can live with those hours and was happy to find a nice selection even at 2 p.m. when most other farmers markets were starting to close up shop. I was hopeful something would catch my eye and make my one, and probably only, trip to a market complete.

She recently purchased the farm and had cleared out some treasures from the old barn and farmhouse. My home is already full of treasures, and at this point in my life I’m trying to buy only consumables. Still, it was nice to have a variety of things to look at, and a rummage sale and farmers market makes for a fun shopping experience.

There was a large table full of beautiful succulents. You could buy individual ones to create your own arrangement, or you could invest in the artful baskets already made. It was tempting, very tempting. The best thing about succulents is their ability to survive neglect. Low maintenance plants should be right up my alley, but I’ve managed to provide premature deaths even to succulents, so I chose to keep walking.

I made my way to the vegetable table. Granted, it’s not a favorite of mine, but I did feel the need to peruse the bounty that had been dutifully gathered. I did a hard pass on the leeks. It’s an odd vegetable that I’ve never enjoyed, and I have a difficult time with a food named after what usually involves an unpleasant experience.

I suppose the same could be said of peas. I passed on those as well. I do remember eating them fresh out of the garden as a child as a pleasant, though distant, memory. I never really warmed up to the cooked variety and it seemed too large of a bowl to eat raw, so those did not find a home with me either.

Baby red potatoes — God’s gift to the human palate and a personal favorite of yours truly. So wonderful, they get their own paragraph from me. I’m not sure why my parents never grew these in their garden. Perhaps I might have become more interested in the gardening process had I been able to grow baby red potatoes rather than the wretched green beans that brought me a solid fourth-place finish in my only 4-H competition at the fair.

Parents beware, if you want your kids to enjoy a hobby you enjoy, you gotta give them a reason to like doing it. If there is one vegetable I have never liked it is beans, and getting a fourth-place ribbon was the equivalent to the participation trophies they hand out these days. Let’s just say it didn’t encourage me to do better.

Strategically placed at the checkout point were the reddest, most perfectly formed strawberries I had ever seen. She said they came from a Mennonite farm. I made the assumption that means they were grown by good people who revere plants and don’t use chemicals to promote growth — just goodness, water, soil and sunshine to produce a divine product. Juicy and sweet and a little bit of heaven right here on earth, this treasured box of strawberries made my summer complete.

Miriam Nelson is the news editor of the Wittenberg Enterprise and Birnamwood News. Readers can contact her at mnelson@newmedia-wi.com.