We recently visited Cascade Valley Farm to see where farmer Matt Motley grows the ingredients for his homemade pickles, salsas, and hummus. Matt has been farming on his ½ acre for about three years and has been pleasantly surprised by how much yield he’s gotten from such a small parcel of land.

We’ve been telling you about our gift guide for weeks now, but we have a few more bonus ideas for those of you who would prefer to DIY some gifts this season! Today would be a perfect day to hit the farmers market and spend the rest of the afternoon using your goodies to make something special for your loved ones.

Can dessert-lovers, gluten-free folks, and superfood fans find common ground? Teena North of Power Yummies thinks they can. Power Yummies focuses on high-quality gluten and nut free desserts that are packed with superfoods. Her desserts are healthy and full of nutrients, but first and foremost, they’re delicious!

When Anna Sugiyama launched Yoka Miso in 2019, her traditionally made misos sold out within an hour of her site going live. She managed to sell out without a huge advertising campaign, press release, or viral social post. Anna’s business was supported by her community, and that strong connection to her community continues to be a driving force behind her business, “We support our community and then the people who want to do that also support us, so it’s this cycle of people just uplifting each other,” Anna says.

Caroline Wright is a bon vivant in the truest sense: her stories and recipes revolve around living every moment fully, with love, optimism and good food. Rooted in community, her work and life are creatively intertwined, lending an intimacy to her voice. Caroline shares her experience – from cooking to cancer – as a trusted guide, helping to encourage and uncover the connection that comes from living each moment with joy and gratitude.

We are pleased to introduce the chefs who will be participating in An Incredible Feast this year!

An Incredible Feast features some of Seattle’s most talented and innovative chefs, paired with market farmers to create an incredible feast of unique and delicious bites, showcasing fresh farm ingredients.

Our vendors are the foundation of the work we do, and one of our goals for 2023 was to provide space for emerging and BIPOC farmers and vendors across all of our markets, with a focus on the brand-new Capitol Hill Tuesday Market (Tuesdays, 3-7pm, until September 26). This year we’ve brought in a record number of new producers, and we are so thrilled to have each and every one of them in our markets. Learn more about Neighborhood Farmers Market’s 2023 first-year vendors!

The markets wouldn’t be what they are today without the farmers and vendors who are at the core of everything we do. Seventeen local produce farmers were on site on opening day in 1993…and 600 shoppers. It was a small (but strong) beginning for NFM, which currently supports 7 markets (3 of which go year-round), and some of those vendors remain staples of our markets today, 30 years later! Thank you to all the farmers and vendors who have been a part of our mission since day one:

Syd Suntha is the Seattle food scene’s jack of all trades. He’s been in the game for years, and has gained loyal fans, followers, and friends every step of the way, with each new unique project exposing him to a new audience of Seattle foodies. “I hear it, because people are like ‘oh that’s the guy from Skillet,’ ‘Oh that’s the Wu Tang guy,’ ‘I think I’ve seen that dude on Instagram,’” Syd explains. “I’ve been around so long working at different restaurants.”

NFM: Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you? What do you do?

Dylan: My name is Dylan. I am a first-year market manager coming in to manage the Phinney Farmers Market. I have a long background in the farmers markets, working for a variety of the different vendors here in Seattle. The vendor I've worked with the most is River Run farm out of Sequim. So I was more or less their Seattle manager, so managing their Community Supported Agriculture Farm box, which is like a delivery program in the neighborhoods around Seattle, as well as all their market booths. But I've worked with a number of our other vendors as well. Tin Dog Brewing, SnoValley Mushrooms; I worked on their farm for a little bit; Brothers and Company; I did some catering events with them. So I've worked with quite a few of them. Before coming to the markets, I attended law school at the University of Washington and found my way into the Farmers Market community through a passion for food and the great community we have here in the farmers markets.

In honor of Earth Day, we’re sharing some easy ways to reduce waste at the Farmers Markets. Some of these ideas are things you may already be doing, and some might be something new for you to try next time you stop by the markets.

We recently got the chance to visit Regino’s Farm in Mount Vernon, where we pulled some weeds, checked out their greenhouse, rinsed some carrots, and learned about the hard work that Regino’s Farm has been putting in to bring fruits and vegetables to our markets since 2019!

Community is at the core of everything Kaffeeklatsch does. It’s even in the name; “Kaffeeklatsch” is German for “A social gathering around coffee.” When Annette Heide-Jessen and her partner opened Kaffeeklatsch in 2011, it was to fill the void of community that they felt was missing in their Lake City neighborhood. There was no other locally-owned coffeeshop in the neighborhood, so they decided to create the ‘third place’ that they had been searching for.

Patty Pan Cooperative has been a staple of the farmers markets since the late 90s. You probably know them from their iconic market quesadillas: fresh tortillas filled with cheese and grilled market veggies. Founder Devra Gartenstein explains the philosophy behind their menu, “Our menu stays the same. The ingredients change.”

“The delicious and most nutrient-dense food is local and in-season,” Wendy Deaton of Wendy Simply Cooks says, explaining why her menu fluctuates with the seasons. She sees her menu as a way to educate her customers and make it easier for them to eat seasonally.

Access has been a pillar of Bow Hill Blueberries’ history, and Audrey Matheson and her brother, Ezra Ranz, committed to maintaining access when they took over the farm in 2020. To the siblings, access means access to education about agriculture, and access to the berries on the farm itself. To make it accessible, they invite people to their farm for You-Pick berries, and farm tours with different focuses, from Epicurean to an Organic Agriculture Intensive.

Imagine you’re halfway done with a snowy, winter hike on the slopes of Mt. Rainier. You’re hungry and tired and cold, but instead of pulling out a half-frozen protein bar, you get to take a minute and pull a still-warm samosa out of your bag. The crispy outside, and the hearty filling of potatoes, peas, and spices instantly warm you from the inside out. The warmth and care put into the small snack is all you need to keep your motivation and spirits high.

Happy gift-giving season! We’re here to help you out by putting together a gift guide to help you get locally-sourced gifts for everyone on your list. We have recommendations for some great goodies to grab from the markets, and we've thrown in a few other ideas that you can source from some of our favorite local businesses to accompany your farmers market goodies. Happy gifting!

Lauren Ko is the baker, artist, and author behind the modern geometric pie Instagram account @lokokitchen, and the accompanying book, Pieometry. Unlike most bestselling cookbook authors, her journey into making pies on an Instagram account with over 419k followers and having a New York Times bestselling cookbook was more of an accidental adventure than an intentional path. Before moving to Seattle, Lauren had no formal training. She had never even baked a pie.

How would you like to try the “drink of gods and kings?”

As the oldest known alcoholic beverage—made with high quality, rare ingredients—mead has rightfully earned the coolest tagline ever. Mead is an alcoholic beverage where honey is used as the fermentable sugar. Where wine uses grapes, mead uses honey, which results in an incredibly wide variety of flavors. There are over 300 named varietals of honey in the United States alone, and that’s not even taking into account all of the botanicals you can infuse mead with.