The Penultimate Market Update

It was another BEE-OOO-tiful day for the market yesterday. So pretty, in fact, I pointed my camera at the sun and took a really bad photo, complete with sun spots:

I've decided not to change the order any of these pics into nice groupings; that way you can see how scatterbrained my day is. First up is my usual first shot:

Please notice the absence of tomatoes. *sob* It's over for another season. :(

But aren't these sweet peppers beauteous?

Several of them came home with me - I plan to stuff them.

Then, OMG: OKRA! NOT DEAD!

Me: You promised there'd be no more!
Farmer Mike: What can I say - they grew.

And people came by saying, "Ooooh, okra!" and in a good way.

Next we have poblanos:

A bunch of these came home with me, too. I plan to make poppers out of them for next weekend's pot luck. Yes, we have an annual pot luck at the market near the end of the season. It's a lot of great food, and many of the customers ask if they can buy some. Sorry, nope. (More for us!) And we're not being mean - our county has such strict food regulations we wouldn't be allowed to sell anything we made in our home kitchens anyway.

Eggplant(s):

... and greens:

Here's some of the greens up close and personal. First - Red Mustard greens:

... then some Asian Mustard greens:

... and finally, some Collards:

Blech to all of them, but that's just me. I'm too Yankee to eat anything but spinach.

Broccoli:

... and lots of green beans (in-focus this week, mostly):

Basil:

Then I wandered over to the flowers. Here's some Hydrangea:

... and Zinnias (I think):

(I'm sure one of you will tell me if I'm wrong. :))

Lots of mums:

A bouquet that stole my heart, but I forgot my vase:

MONKEY BALLS!

Then I moved on to Farmer Katie's tables. More brussel sprouts:

It cracked me up all day watching people carry these things like a baby in their arms. (hee hee) Yes, I amuse easily.

Beets:

Sweet potatoes:

More sweet potatoes:

Swiss chard:

Quince:

Say what? Quince? Well, we know of it since it used to grow on the farmland that was plowed under to build the Kentlands development, and we have a Quince Orchard Blvd and a Quince Orchard High School. Quince is a fruit that, according to both Farmer Katie and Wikipedia, is bitter, needs to be processed, and is used mostly in jams & jellies, or as an addition to apple pies or applesauce. Also from the Wiki entry: The term "marmalade", originally meaning a quince jam, derives from "marmelo," the Portuguese word for this fruit. Interesting, non? She sells a lot of them, so people must know how to prepare them. Me? Not so much.

Let us not forget APPLES!

I jumped the gun, as Farmer Katie was still setting out her baskets of apples, filling in all those spaces. LOTS of apples.

And some gourds:

Seeing as there was still nothing that resembled a customer for me, I wandered over to bug MB and her girls, and spotted these:

CUTE!

Back to Farmer Mike and his HOT peppers:

I actually bought some of his paint-peeling jalapenos, which I'll use as part of my controlled study in Scoville Units next week. I'll have Farmer Mike jalapeno poppers, Local grocery store jalapeno poppers, and Farmer Mike poblano poppers. Should be fun!

Later in the day, since I was still restless, I went back over to the flowers to see what I could see. Orange!

You'll see more orange in a sec. I got distracted by this fellow:

Stinkin' cute costume!

Okay, back to the flowers. Can you see the purple tips on some of the petals?

Aren't they pretty?

Okay, for my next trick, I bring you a "you took THAT photo with YOUR camera?!" submission:

I was going for the un-opened bloom, and I think I got it! I love Mother Nature!

Here's a couple of doggies in motion (they were quick):

A handsome beast:

A puppy!

LOVE the floppy ears!

A doggie butt shot:

[Sudden change of focus]

Have you ever heard of or seen these?

I haven't. There certainly are a lot of different kinds of squash!

You know those MONKEY BALLS? They are a form of Milk Weed. This is what the inside of the pod looks like:

Cool, huh? The white stuff we see floating around in the air comes out of the inner pods when they explode.

Some Party Time:

And some PIES!

A small cherry pie came home with me and was consumed in one sitting. It wasn't pretty, but OMG it was goooood.

This is a purple sweet potato:

and it has a really big name: Murasakiiro Imo. Yeah, "purple sweet potato" works much better, I agree. :)

And these are radishes:

See that quarter I put there for perspective? Farmer Mike said these are small ones. They grow to about 3". Aren't they pretty?

Back to the flower tables. A red fleur:



And a white one:

and another:

Then this fellow dropped in for a visit:

He even let me get pretty close with the camera:

Remember that bouquet of flowers I mentioned earlier? I had them add some green cockscomb to it and it became mine:

Lastly, I bring you what I called A Study In Contrast:

The bigger dog's paw was about the same size as the little dog's head! Here's another perspective:

By the way, that's a Labradoodle. :) And you can see a small princess at about 1:00. There were a lot of kids in costumes!

That's all I have from the market. After I got home, I turned around and headed back out - unheard of in my world, to go to the Metro (train) station to head into DC to meet up with my cousin who was in town for the Rally for Sanity. But more on that tomorrow. I need to make some cards for my Stamp Camps that are NEXT WEEKEND. Yikes!

Thanks for stopping by!