It’s been unfortunate weather for strawberries this year, with heavy rains coming right at their peak. But area gardens made up for the lack of strawberries with abundant lettuce and salad greens. Now it’s time for fresh peas. Look for the flat, edible-pod snow peas popular in Chinese cooking, sweet shelling peas, and sugar snap peas—full-size peas with edible, crunchy pods.

Jane Prater and Shawn West of “The Garden” offer perennials and annuals, as well as extra-sturdy shepherd’s hook plant hangers. Penny Carroll brings a wide variety of perennials from her own garden to the market, including daylilies, ornamental grass, buttercups, and ferns. Siegrist Farms has a great selection of colorful hanging baskets, including petunias, impatiens, vining geraniums, begonias, and more. The Troendlys of Victorian Rose Farm specialize in coleus, tuberous begonias, mixed planters, and unusual perennials.

You’ll find other choices for Mom at the market as well, including delicious homemade pastries, cookies, and candies. See you there!

Sales begin when the starting bell rings at 8:30 a.m., and continue until 12 noon. Look for early-season produce like asparagus, rhubarb, lettuce, spinach, and radishes, fresh from local gardens. Come early to get the best selection! You’ll also find delicious homemade pies, cookies, and candies, as well as jams and jellies.

 To spruce up your flowerbeds, porch, or deck, or to buy gifts for Mother’s Day, you’ll find a great selection of colorful plants from Siegrist Farms, Victorian Rose Farm, and others. Look for annual and perennial flowers, decorative planters, and hanging baskets, including plants for both shade and sun.

 Don’t miss the Coshocton Farmers’ Market welcome booth, staffed by market manager Rashelle Gillett. We have T-shirts and tote bags for sale, embroidered with the farmers’ market logo, and offer information about the market and important food issues.

See you at the market!

Special events at the market in 2009 included chef demonstrations with fresh, local produce by Chef Rashelle Cutshall of Nature’s Gourmet, broadcasts by WTNS Radio, and an information booth staffed by Master Gardeners.

A big thank-you to those shoppers who week after week brought their own shopping bags, making things easier on our vendors and on the earth. We hope to see everyone back on the first Saturday in May, for another great farmers’ market season!

It’s still the height of tomato season for many vendors, with all sorts of vine-ripened tomatoes available including heirloom varieties with thin skins, rich flavor, and colors from yellow, gold, and striped green to deep rose and dusky purple. Other late summer produce includes zucchini and yellow summer squash, sweet peppers, eggplant, carrots, beets, potatoes, and green beans.

Fall produce is beginning to appear as well—butternut and acorn squash, pumpkins and gourds, and colorful pots of chrysanthemums. In coming weeks, keep an eye out for local apples, Indian corn, and corn shocks. Cool-weather crops like lettuce, arugula, spinach, Swiss chard, and kale should be more abundant, too, as we move into fall.

Look for more chef demonstrations in September, using produce from our vendors.

Come and taste the freshness for yourself! WTNS Radio, 99.3 Coshocton, will be broadcasting from the market, and perhaps do on-the-air tasting or interview “eaters.” After enjoying the cooking demonstration, stroll around and visit our vendors. We have more vendors and more choices than ever before. See you at the market!

So what’s fresh and local in July in Coshocton County? In spite of giant strawberries still on supermarket produce shelves, strawberry season is officially over—our area does not have strawberries from February to October. (Those are shipped from far, far away.) Our strawberry season is actually quite short—from three weeks to a month, usually the month of June, but it’s worth the wait. Nothing beats the sweet, “sunshine” flavor of local strawberries. Then come the peas, and that season is winding down, too.

In July, you’ll find basil, beets, blueberries, carrots, cherries, cilantro, cucumbers, garlic, green beans, herbs, leeks, onions, peaches, plums, potatoes, raspberries, summer squash (including zucchini), summer apples, sweet corn, Swiss chard, and turnips. At the end of the month, there might be vine-ripened tomatoes (but there’ll be lots more in August), sweet and hot peppers, eggplant, and okra.

Some of our vendors speed up or extend the seasons by using greenhouses and row covers, or by continuous planting and careful watering. So you will probably still find lettuce and salad greens for most of the summer, and you might find some early tomatoes. If you want to eat only local and seasonal produce, just ask the vendors, “Did you grow this?” and “How do you use it?” They’ll be happy to talk with you.