As summer winds down - oh, wait, it already did wind down, techincally it’s autumn - one of the things that I’m reflecting on are Farmers Markets. I will miss those terribly once winter arrives!

I love farmers markets. I love seeing all the beautiful, fresh fruits, veggies (I suppose here I should also mention fresh bakery) and craft items at our local farm market. I love the items change with the seasons - from strawberries, rhubarb, peas and perenniels in late spring, to fresh cut flowers and the total bounty that is summer, to the pumpkins, squash, apples and autumn decorations that are out there now.

I love talking with the farmers and growers, getting to know them as the weeks go by. You just can’t get this kind of experience from a grocery store, no matter how great that store may be. And talk about fresh - lots of it was just picked. Again, you can’t get that in a grocery store.

I’ve gotten great bargains there - a bushel of red, yellow, green and purple peppers for $4, last year, comes to mind. After freezing them, I didn’t have to buy peppers for the rest of the year. When I saw colored peppers in the store for $4.98 a pound, I just smiled and passed them by. Made my frozen peppers taste even better, I can assure you!

This year, I haven’t spent as much time at the farmers market as I did in the past, mainly since my garden went crazy and gave us more tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers than we could eat and preserve. We are still eating locally produced foods, but this is mainly courtesy of our garden. Who knew there were so many ways to prepare cucumbers? We were blessed with a huge number of ”burpless” cucumbers this year, which we ate just about every day…and you should see my shelves of home canned pickles from the other plant!

What we couldn’t use, we gave away. Several people told us how much they appreciated it, and how much better our cukes and tomatoes tasted than what they usually had. Which leads me back to why I love buying locally grown produce - the freshness. It just tastes better. So much better!