Corvallis Saturday Farmers' Market

... was much better than the Astoria Sunday Market in some ways.


This exactly about my gardening, but I thought it worthy of documenting my first trip to one of the Corvallis markets as shown below. :) So, Saturday morning I took the "5" down to the station and walked a few blocks from there to the market.

First, I walked up and down the market, which was in a bit of a T-shape. There were several farm, nursery, and flower booths. I took special care looking at the cut flowers. Two flower/vegetable stand were not exactly local, e.g., the Cambodian families from Salem.

It was a nice market with room to walk around and a music "act" every few stands. By "room to walk around" I mean not flooded with tourists. :)

Second, when I got to the end I turned around and went down the other side. I stopped at Bare Mountain, to look at their flowers. They sold bouquets and posy bunches as well as by the stem. I was browsing when my eye caught yellow stock! There were four stems, two of which were long but extremely crooked. I asked the woman if they were for sale as they were in a bucket at the back of the tent. She said yes and warned about the crookedness. I said I didn't care because it was yellow stock. :) She asked who I will assume is her husband about the pricing. He thought about it and said $0.50 per stem. I took them. I really wanted them. 

I also bought a stem of yellow freesia. I will mention that both were grow outdoors, not in a greenhouse. The freesia had some cover from rain. I picked out two stems of dark, dark pink Sweet William as well. They had dahlias but I just wasn't in the mood, I wanted a certain peony instead. I grabbed their card on the way out. When I got home a realized that it was also a punch card: buy eight bouquets, get one free. 

I continued to a stand that I cannot remember the name of, but may have been Greengable Farms, an educated guess using the interactive market map on locallygrown.org. There I purchased a bunch of pink, with a touch of yellow, snapdragons for $3.00. 

I went back to a stand I investigated the first time down the street, Yummy Honey I believe it was. There a woman had many potted plants, mostly lilies and delphinium, some honey, and bouquets. She was making bouquets with everything she could get her hands on it looked like. she had peonies, roses, delphinium, larkspur, irises, grasses, etc. The greenery? Cedar. It was different, that's for sure. But it smelled good. :) She reminded me of my grandmother and I could picture her having a small roadside stand just like my gram. Here she is:

The lady on the far right was some customer but kept rambling on about Penstemon care. 

Although... my gram wouldn't use cedar in June. Despite that, I bought a bouquet for $5.00 with several peonies, irises, one red rose, and some others. The reason I picked the particular bouquet? This:

BAM! It's huge!

So I gathered my flowers in my tote bag and headed back to the bus stop because I had to work at 2:30 and didn't want to be rushed. As soon as I left it began to sprinkle. By the time I got off at my bus stop to walk home it was raining. Perfect timing though!

Here is my trip in one photo: 

 These are the "friends" I inadvertently brought home as well:

 A couple "arrangements" that were really just thrown together before work: :)

The house smelled awesome when I came home!