Pictures from Boroondara Farmers’ Market at Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

I love farmers’ market – the quality of the fresh vegetables is just incomparable. Everything is lovely, green and fresh. And cheap. It’s awesome.

And some fresh pears. I got a bag of pears and lemons and apples. I couldn’t help myself.

These guys sell the nicest oranges. They are so sweet and juicy. I can’t rave enough about them.

These are actually navel oranges. I am told sweet navel oranges. Strangely enough, I read on Wikipedia that all navel oranges are grafted and came from the same original tree in California(?) so I wonder how these guys are so much sweeter than all the navel oranges I have tasted.

Also some tangelo, which I assume are a cross between a tangerine and a pomelo. It does have that grapefruity, pomelo-y taste although I’m not too sure what tangerine normally tastes like.

Radish – how cheap are they? By then, we had already bought way too much so I gave them a miss. But next time.

These were the nicest looking parsley and spring onions. We bought a bunch each. I ended up putting the spring onions into soups but sadly the nice parsley was just picked on here and there. Next time I’m going to make tabouleh.

I ended up buying one of these guys but he’s still sitting in my fridge. I intended to roast him with potatoes and whatnot but never got around to it. He’d be all right for a few more days, I might mash him.

I did get a baby artichoke, just to try out. I never boiled artichoke before (usually just sautee it) so this time, I boiled it up.

I was making pasta for dinner so I just tossed the little guy into the cooking pasta. Of course he took a little bit longer to cook than the pasta but he was only a tiny little thing, I boiled him for about 15 minutes and ate him for dessert. I never ate the artichoke leaves before, they were very interesting. They were a bit bitter but in a good, interesting way.

They were also selling some really nice looking silverbeet and broccoli. Didn’t buy any because we had already bought too much but the silverbeet would have been really great sauteed on a crostini

These were, so they claimed, first pick of the season. I couldn’t resist (and they were so cheap! 3 large punnets for $10). They were one of the freshest, sweetest strawberries I have ever had in Australia. Beautiful.

They also sold apples. Mr. Coddling Moth (aka Joshua) bought 4 kg of apples, which he went through in rapid succession. I think I only got about 3 over 2 weeks.

There was also a bunch of Turkish guys selling gozleme and Turkish breads.

We didn’t buy any but we did buy a loaf of Turkish bread, which was fresh and lovely. Those guys wanted royalty from my photography! The cheek! One of them even posed for a photo (although it didn’t turn out very well)

And like any other urban farmers’ market, there was some sort of entertainment for the kids. This time, we had drumming lessons.

I bought a few loaves of Hope Farm bread, which is proper sourdough made the old fashion way. I think they are a Christian commune of sorts and they only sell their breads at farmers’ markets. They do some times supply their breads to health shop but it just isn’t the same as it’s not fresh. They have the best breads – their spicy fruit bread is to die for. Our total haul was quite impressive!

Boroondara Farmers’ Market, Patterson Reserve, Auburn Road, Hawthorn East
Third Saturday of every month

For information on other farmers’ markets or to search for a farmer’s market near you, try the Australian Farmers’ Market Association website