by Joli Allen

A wide selection of fresh produce at the Pescadero Farmers Market. Photos: Joli Allen.

December 2011—There is something about walking into the Pescadero afternoon farmers market that erases any tension from a day’s work and brings visitors to their roots — literally. Booths overflow with a multi-sensual display of locally grown fruits and vegetables harvested only hours before. Health-promoting phytochemicals are evident in brightly hued seasonal zucchini, red butter lettuce, chard and tomatoes. You can’t help shifting your thoughts to dinner, family and friends.

Here is the place to taste and learn about produce that is not often seen in grocery stores. Duck eggs and squash flowers, goat’s milk fudge, beet baba ghanoush, local single-varietal honey and grass-fed beef were some of the items available one recent week. Pumpkin goat cheese made its debut another week. The vendors are happy to give cooking tips for their produce. How do you eat a flower? Just ask. Vendors at Farmagedon Farms are enthusiastic with their suggestions: “You can stuff squash flowers, or cut them up and spread them on a tortilla with melted Monterey Jack. Squash flowers have a delicate flavor.”

Guillermo Bayley of Del Sur Farms advises sautéing his rainbow chard in olive oil with a little garlic. “It’s really good that way,” he says. But if you aren’t into cooking, fresh farmers market produce tastes distinctly flavor-packed without much preparation. Just-picked chard is incredibly sweet and buttery — and the red and yellow stalks on the chard add to the beauty of any dish. “We have a motto,” says Jeff Haas, of Echo Valley Farm: “The vegetables that you buy here were vegetables in the ground in the morning.”

Looking pretty.

The Pescadero Farmers Market opened in July, and it’s a successful demonstration of agricultural sustainability and small farms at their best. “We have an amazing group of farmers and producers selling nearly everything a family or person needs to make a complete meal,” says Kerry Lobel, director of Puente, a South Coast nonprofit that organized the market. “The response from farmers and producers was overwhelming — what we thought might be a market with three or four farmers now has more than 15 farmers and producers.” Vendors are diversifying to strengthen sales and to support each other. Guilermo Bayley has sold redwood plants along with his herbs and vegetables. There’s also a fish market and two meat vendors.

The market is not out of the red yet, though. On the average, a farmers market is expected to get support from two percent of a small town’s population. This is the challenge for Pescadero. To survive, it must do better than a two- percent support rate.

As the day fades into early evening, customers walk, ride bikes or drive to the downtown lot in the center of Pescadero. The atmosphere is almost celebratory. “The market is a fulcrum for the community to interact with each other. The community aspect of it is very rich,” says Jeff Haas. “There are wellsprings of young farmers who all want to grow food and this is such an important opportunity for the food system. They love to grow food.”

Selection of heirloom tomatoes.

Shoppers stop to sample fresh sweet tomatoes, to rave over the Echo Valley Farm fingerling potatoes, or to chat with friends. Beekeepers trade information at the Coastal Bees booth. Catherine Fraley, owner of Coastal Bees, has two dozen hives, some on organic farms to help with pollinating the crops. One sample for tasting is a whipped honey that tastes as good as its creamy pearlescent color and texture suggests.

One objective of the market was to provide fresh produce for low-income residents, many of them farm workers. This goal is being realized with the help of the Pescadero Grown tokens program, which matches purchases up to $10 each week. However, as the season changes, workers may have difficulty getting to the market. Lobel explains: “The biggest challenge for afternoon markets like ours is that it gets dark earlier … making it difficult for working people to get to the market before it closes. This is especially true for the farm and agricultural workers who work late hours in the fall.”

The market will evolve to meet its needs. One thing won’t change: It will continue providing the freshest local grown foods.