Lee Moore filled her basket with leafy turnips and fresh-cut asparagus. The spring morning was brisk and the wind blustery, but the Dunwoody woman was eager to see the return of fresh spring vegetables when the Dunwoody Green Market opened on April 11 for a new season of business.
Moore said she’s been shopping at this market for years.
“Every Wednesday, unless I’m out of town,” she said. “I love all these farmers.”
Count it as another sign of spring: Farmers markets are back in business.
“It’s time,” said Paula Guilbeau, manager of the Dunwoody Green Market. “I’m ready for the season. I think everybody is ready.”
On Saturday, April 14, the Peachtree Road Farmers Market in Buckhead and Sandy Springs Farmers Market are scheduled to open.
The Peachtree Road market , located in the parking lot of the Cathedral of St. Philip, 2744 Peachtree Road NW, will open for its sixth season. The Sandy Springs market will set up at 235 Sandy Springs Circle NW in Sandy Springs. Both markets will be open from 8:30 a.m. until noon.
The Brookhaven Farmers Market is set to open May 5, according to its website. It operates in the parking lot behind the row of businesses at 1441 Dresden Drive. Another market is open on Thursday afternoons in the parking lot of the Old Mesh Corners shopping center at the intersection of Ashford-Dunwoody and Johnson Ferry roads.
The Dunwoody market raised its tents first, with vendors on hand April 11 to sell everything from cookies to cheese and pizza to popsicles. Vendors offered fresh bread, fresh tarts and eco-friendly coffee. A string band played.
“[Business] was good. It was brisk. It was a good day. It was a great day,” said Guilbeau, who was selling heirloom tomato plants, herbs, flowers and hostas from her Heirloom Gardens booth.
Candice Reynolds, owner of the Red Queen Tarts booth, said she sold more than 100 of her baked tarts on the first day at the Duwnoody market. “Pretty good,” she said.
Her top seller? Caramelized pear and fig.
Market manager Guilbeau said about 30 vendors set up at the market on the first day and that more could join during the remainder of the year. The market continues from 8 a.m. until noon each Wednesday through Nov. 21, she said.
Moore shops at the market so often that she’s on a first-name basis with some of the regular vendors.
“We talk for hours,” she said. “That’s what’s also nice – we have a common bond. We all believe in the same thing, the natural, organic way of doing things.”
Besides, the market is close to home.
“I could walk here, if it wasn’t for all the food I buy to take home,” she said.