Clark Park Farmers Market, Philadelphia, Penn.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Clark Park Farmers Market in spring

The Clark Park Farmers Market, one of two year-round farmers markets in Philadelphia managed by the Food Trust, was basking in warm sunshine today, dappled by the spotty shade of trees that had just begun to leaf out days earlier. The farmers and producers selling their harvests and prepared food products sure looked a lot more comfortable than they did when I visited this market in the dead of winter. The produce on the tables still was a wintry mix of storage apples, root crops, mushrooms and hardy, cold-tolerant greens such as kale and spinach. Green garlic was one harbinger of spring in the market today. It won’t be long now before an array of other spring crops arrive.

– Mark Thompson

blue oyster mushrooms
Blue oyster mushroom from the market, photographed on a Revolutionary War-era farm at Washington Crossing State Park

slide show


What I Bought

potatoes and turnips
Beets, Yukon gold and all blue potatoes, deep purple sweet potatoes
Price: $2.25/lb. for beets
$3.95/lb. for sweet potatoes
$1.50/lb. for potatoes

deep purple sweet potatoes

I wondered what was so “deep purple” about these sweet potatoes – until I got them home, gave them a scrub and sliced one open. On the table at the market, with a sheen of earth on them, they looked like any other dark red sweet potato. At home in my kitchen, their uniquely spectacular purple color revealed itself.


mushrooms
Georgio organic crimini, blue gray oyster and portabella mushrooms
Price: $2/each for portabellas
$3/half a pound of criminis
$5/half a pound of blue gray oysters


spinach
Spinach
$2.95/bag

The spinach, green garlic and some of my other purchases today are from Landisdale Farm, a certified organic farm in Jonestown, Penn., about 100 miles northwest of here.


fuji and jonagold apples
Fuji and Jonagold apples
$1.75/lb.


green garlic
green garlic
$2/bunch


spring mix
Spring braising mix
$2/quarter pound bag