Great Gainesville Farmers Market Finds

We like to buy local.

For the obvious reasons of course; like fueling our immediate economy and supporting small businesses. But also because it's just gosh darn fun.

This weekend some CMC teammates met at the Haile Village Farmers Market. This weekend market is held every Saturday morning on the main street of the village - SW 91st Terrace from 8:30a.m. to 12 noon.

Parking and walking is easy and a live jazz trio is a great touch for early morning browsing. The only thing we would add are some gigantic mist fans because it is HOT. Sizzling. Humid!

So bring a fan with you if you can or a cool bottle of water - alternately many stalls sell water and provide drinking barrels for pets (oh yeah they can come too so it's a bonafide family affair).

How good looking are these tomatoes cucumbers and peaches!

We advise getting there early. We meandered over to the village by 9:30a.m. and the fresh fish was already gone. There are about three seafood vendors on average selling their best catches of: tiger shrimp rock shrimp scallops grouper red snapper salmon and more.

You can find many fruit and vegetable stalls on the main drag but one of our favorites is the stall with a large assortment of eggplants - found just to the left of The Village Jeweler's storefront. This stall also has a great variety of juicy sweet melons AND they offer samples of everything.

A few steps towards Haile Blvd are the savoury offerings from The Flower Pot Bakery in Town of Tioga. They bring fresh breads baguettes buns croissants tarts pies and other baked confections.

There's also a fresh honey stall with four varieties of honey candles soaps and beeswax products. Their Orange Blossom honey was a big hit at our office.

The list of great finds goes on and on: artisan pastas antique and handcrafted jewelry geodes organic vegetables soy candles. It's a fun way to spend a Saturday morning.

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Do you think shopping at farmers markets are more cost effective than shopping at grocery stores?

Are the goods better the same or different?

Leave a comment below we'd love to hear your thoughts.