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Want to go for a drive?
Each Thursday afternoon from May through September the parking lot at Ridley’s Supermarket in downtown Middleton Idaho becomes a local marketplace. Early in the season you will find the flower and vegetable starts for your garden, and a host of fruits and vegetables come and go as the season wears on.
You won’t find the hustle and bustle of bigger markets, (see www.examiner.com/x-21294-Boise-Gardening-Examiner~y2009m8d29-Nampas-farmers-market),
But you can share an evening with a few folks from around this part of the valley bringing the fruit of their labors to market. Some fresh vegetables, fruits from trees or vines, mix in a little wood craft, some honey, home sewn items and a clown; this is just the place for a gardener to get away for an hour.
The folks are friendly and the pace leisurely. It’s a time to converse with folks who grow things. If growing things is in your blood, you will feel right at home here. You will need to get right out there after work or supper though because they start at 4:30 and pack it up at 7:30. This week there were about 15 venders with a variety of wares. They circle a spot to one side of the parking lot leaving plenty of parking for customers.
The produce is fresh, and the prices down to earth as well. You can fill your basket from a table of tomatoes, squash, and plums, or from a pickup full of corn or melons. Taste the canned jellies before you buy, or sample some homemade relishes and pickles.
The standout here is the natural growing techniques. It takes some real work. This produce may not meet the clinical definition of "organic," however, each of the growers we talked to did use organic methods, avoiding the pesticides and staying with natural gardening methods.
The couple form Black Dog Farms were good enough to share some tips on squash bugs. If you’re not going to use the pesticides, they said you’ve got start out early in the season, check the plants closely and scrape the eggs off the underside of the leaves. But around here they said you have to plant twice as many plants as you want and pull up the ones that get infested.
We talked to Dean, from out by sand hollow, who is at the market almost every week, selling homemade wooden kitchen utensils and other assorted wood crafts along with a few cantaloupes from the garden. He said this year had been a good year for him at the market.
As more people put off vacations in the current economy we look for places that are unique but close at hand. For those who want something quiet and away from it all, this is a place to visit.
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