Sustainable Saturday-Charleston South Carolina Farmers Market

This is one of the most beautiful location for a farmers market that I have ever seen.

South Carolina State Arsenal Building, Charleston, SC

Part of the pleasure of travel for me is finding and eating local food, especially food that is fresh and minimally processed.  Today was the opening day of the Charleston farmer's market, held in historic Marion Square in Charleston. (At a later date, I will blog about the history I found inside this square. In fact, the building above has an interesting history as the former location of the famed military college, The Citadel.)

Even as far south as Charleston is, not everything they are offering is in season yet.

The vendors marked produce that was local, though, and one vendor (price list above) was quite upfront about exactly where each of his items originated from.  (ONPF means his own. Lady Moon is in Florida. Mayflower was elsewhere in South Carolina).  We bought garlic (below) from him.

This vendor advertised local only, with a big offering of radishes, and early greens.

We were so thrilled to buy fresh garlic (not last year's storage crop) from this market.

Strawberries are also at the beginning of their season.  We bought the strawberries and reluctantly left the dewberries behind.

There was a lot of photography going on, and none of the vendors seemed to mind. 

Mushrooms were a welcome surprise, although we didn't buy any.

The Charleston market did not disappoint - with one exception, something that also bothers me about our local downtown Binghamton, New York farmer's market - not all of the food is local.  But there was a local food information booth, and I talked to two energetic young women attempting to get the word out.  In a city where world famed restaurants are on almost every streetcorner downtown, I hope the word does continue to get out.

We did buy a couple of local food items you find in few other places, which will be subjects of a later post.

Our local farmer's market in upstate New York won't be outdoors for another three weeks.  I basked in that 80 degree heat - by Tuesday, back home, we may get some snow.

Have you shopped at a farmer's market recently?