A summer of fresh, locally grown produce — lettuce, asparagus, radishes, and later peppers, ripe red tomatoes, fruits and berries — begins Thursday.
The Ridgefield Farmers’ Market will be held at the Community Center on Thursday afternoons throughout the growing season, from 1:30 to 5:30, starting on June 5.
The market will be set up in the Community Center’s north side parking lot between its Lounsbury House and the village commercial district.
“We’ll have, obviously, produce, meat, some really good prepared food that people make out of organic stuff,” said Community Center President Rich Vazzana.
“It’s free to the public. Local area farmers. We do have some people coming in from upstate Connecticut and New York,” he said.
“It’s mostly organic farming. The rule is: For a farmer to be there, they have to have grown this themselves.”
While fresh produce will be the market’s mainstay, the offerings from some 15 vendors are expected to include meat, fresh breads, coffee, organic soap.
There are plans to have a seed swap and a recipe exchange each week as part of the market.
The committee organizing the market is also arranging to have a variety of things going on in different weeks throughout the summer.
“We’re going to have little special events every once in a while,” said Carol Vazzana, who is joined on the committee by Kam Daughters and Jennifer Trillo.
The events will start in two weeks, with Nick and Knife, a knife sharpener, on June 12. Alan Gorkin will be at the June 19 market, talking about raising chickens at home. A book swap is planned for July 3, and July 14 there’ll be a blood drive.
“We’re going to have music some weeks. We’re trying to make it entertaining. We’re working on having some children’s activities,” Ms. Vazzana said.
“We’re hoping to get someone from the garden club to help with container plantings.”
The vendors and what they offer may change through the course of the season.
“This time of year we have things like radishes, turnips, salad mix, kale, asparagus,” said Mary Jawlik, farm manager at The Hickories on Lounsbury Road, which will be part of the market this year.
“As the season progresses — July, August — we’ll have all the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash,” she said.
“We’ll have strawberries, blueberries, peaches, currants, and we hope to have raspberries and blackberries.”
The Hickories, which also has a farm stand seven days a week and a community-supported agriculture, or CSA, program, will also be selling “our very own salsa and marinara sauce, other preserves and wool products” at the Thursday farmers’ market, and daily at the farm stand.
The starting list of expected vendors for this year’s market includes:
• Plaskos Farm, produce and baked goods.
• The Olive Oil Factory.
• Riverbank Farm, produce, herbs, flowers.
• Fresh Pastabilities, pasta.
• Killam & Bassette Farms, produce.
• Community Energy, energy efficiency, solar panels.
• Carrot Top, prepared foods.
• DoReMe, produce.
• Johnnycake Mountain, meat.
• Ospuro, handcrafted organic soaps.
• Simpaug Farms, produce.
• Big Bang Coffee Roasters, organic coffees and teas.
• Rincon Taqueria, prepared foods.
• Smith’s Acres, produce.
• The Hickories, produce, jams, preserves, wool.
For several years Ridgefield had a successful farmers’ market off Danbury Road in a small green in the midst of the Commerce Park parking lot. That was lost when another commercial building was built there, and the market moved to the green area off Governor Street, between the upper and lower parking lots.
“It was on 35 and then it was down by the Boys & Girls Club,” Carol Vazzana said. “We were very popular at the first site. The second site didn’t work.
“Then we went for a year and half without any.”
Last year, as the new president of the Community Center, her husband pushed the idea of having a farmers’ market, Ms. Vazzana said, but it didn’t get going early in the season.
“It didn’t get started in time, and people found other places,” Ms. Vazzana said.
This year the market is starting early. It has 15 vendors signed up already, and organizers are optimistic.
“It’s a great offering,” Carol Vazzana said. “It’s only a positive for people to come and get fresh produce. It’s just a happy place and happy time.”