Yes, you heard that right. Even though we are situated in the hot, arid Mojave desert, farmer’s markets have sprung up and are thriving here in Las Vegas. Like the rest of the country, Vegas has seen an upsurge of interest in fresh, organic, and where possible, locally-grown food. We now have several weekly farmer’s markets in Las Vegas and Henderson.
Sunday we visited the Fresh52 Farmers’ and Artisan Market, held at the Richmar Plaza on Eastern and Richmar every Sunday from 8:30am – 2:00pm. This market features 30 or so booths with everything from fresh, organic fruits and vegetables to handcrafted items, prepared foods, roasted coffee, gourmet balsamic vinegar, freshly sprouted wheat grass, and just an amazing variety of things!
Many of the fresh fruits and vegetables are from farms in California. That’s because our local terrain is really not quite cut out to be farmland. But there are some local offerings too. The handmade items are local, and we have people who grow things hydroponically. Also there are locally grown herbs that are wonderfully aromatic and terrifically tasty.
Strawberries from Success Valley Farms in Oxnard, CA
One of the reasons for arriving early is plump, ripe strawberries. If you wait and come here in the afternoon, they are usually sold out. I mean, who doesn’t love strawberries? For me, they always make me think of the strawberry shortcake my Mom used to make, fresh strawberries trimmed and quartered with homemade shortcake and hand whipped cream that had just a touch of sugar and vanilla added. Mmmm, good! We couldn’t resist and bought a whole flat. We had to give some away to a friend since we were unlikely to use that many in a timely fashion!
Grapefruits from Murray Family Farms, Bakersfield, CA
We also procured some lovely citrus fruits, namely, blood oranges and varietal grapefruits. Actually, according to the young man in the booth, the so-called “Cocktail Grapefruits” shown at left (the small ones) are actually a hybrid of citrus fruits — orange, grapefruit, lemon and lime. It sounds downright scrumptious, doesn’t it? We haven’t tried them yet but I’ll give an update when we do.
Besides these items, we got: some avocadoes, a bunch of asparagus, a pint of fresh pomegranate juice, a bag of sugar snap peas, a big bag of fresh flavored popcorn (non-GMO), and some handcrafted jalapeno and cheese sausages. We already ate the sausage and it was delicious!
There were so many booths we couldn’t buy from everyone, but we’ll be back again trying out new items next week.
Oh, did I mention the live music? This young man was serenading us all while we shopped:
Live music at the farmer’s market
It’s great to have regular farmer’s markets we locals can frequent here in Las Vegas and Henderson. Here are some links to various Las Vegas and Henderson farmer’s markets lists and sites:
http://www.fresh52.com/Index.html
http://www.vegas4locals.com/freefarmersmarkets.html
http://nevadagrown.com/farmers-market-list/
http://www.countryfreshfarmersmarket.com/
http://www.lasvegasfarmersmarket.com/
http://downtown3rdfarmersmarket.com/
Until next time,
Good luck to ya!
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