Sanford Farmers Market

I bought all this for $18!!!

To be honest, I gave up on local farmers markets many years ago, put off by the lack of . . . well . . . farmers. Getting up early on a weekend morning to buy produce that came off the same truck that's headed to Publix didn't seem worthwhile to me.

But lately, with a growing awareness of local and organic food, I've noticed small farm stands popping up at a few local markets. For a while, the Sunday market by my mom's house had a fabulous produce vendor with bunches of organic produce from their farm near Melbourne. Unfortunately, the market folded and I'm not sure where they're going now.

I never bothered to find a replacement, but these days, since my grocery list starts with 14 cucumbers (thanks to the CSD juicing), I decided to give farmers markets another shot. For the past few weekends, we've driven by the Sanford Farmers Market on our way to baseball, but today was the first chance we had to stop - and I found it to be well worth the visit.

The two produce vendors there both offered local produce. One had a wide variety that they buy from local farms in their area and resell, with everything being local to Florida except for the tomatoes. The other had an amazing variety of greens (kale, chard, turnips, several varieties of lettuce, spinach and way more that I just can't remember) from their farm in Samsula. The prices were amazing! I paid $2.50 for an enormous bunch of chard, $1.25 for a large head of red leaf lettuce and $1.00 for a big bunch of kale.

Here's what I bought for about $18:

- Chard
- Kale
- Lettuce (can't remember the kind)
- Red leaf lettuce
- Green beans
- Beets
- Sweet potatoes
- Red potatoes

The Sanford Farmers Market is open every Saturday from 9AM to 2PM in Magnolia Square in downtown Sanford. In addition to the regular farmers market, there is a health and wellness expo on the 2nd Saturday of each month and an arts and crafts fair on the last Saturday.

Although I have other markets on my list to check out, I can definitely see a return visit to Sanford in my future!