WSDA Blog

When you’re shopping at a grocery store, the goal is often efficiency: stick to the list, move quickly, and get out. With that mindset, it’s easy to overlook the story behind the food and the journey it took to get there.
Farmers markets offer something different. They invite us to slow down, connect, and meet the people behind our food.

In Washington, over 165 farmers markets bloom across the state—especially in summer—bringing fresh, local produce and a chance to support our communities directly. In honor of National Farmers Market Week, WSDA visited one of Seattle’s many vibrant markets to hear from the vendors themselves.

While this visit highlighted a single market, it reflects a bigger picture. To learn more about the impact farmers markets have in our state, WSDA also spoke with Colleen Donovan, Executive Director of the Washington State Farmers Market Association. According to Donovan,

WSFMA member farmers markets are open almost 3,000 market days a year, creating economic opportunities for over 6,500 small businesses that produce and sell fresh fruits and vegetables, local meats, dairy, eggs, jams, salsas, and a creative range of value-added products, as well as one-of-a kind crafts, and ready-to-eat foods.
 
Last year, WSFMA member farmers markets collectively reported nearly $84 million in vendor sales, a new record. These sales have deep local impacts, and are vital to launching new businesses, creating jobs, supplementing and securing livelihoods.

Cheese with character: Tieton Farm & Creamery

Lori Babcock owner, livestock handler, and cheesemaker of Tieton Farm & Creamery stands behind a booth brimming with carefully aged cheeses at the Queen Anne Farmers Market

Their top-selling cheeses are Rheba, a complex goat and sheep milk with rich, and character, and Bianca, a fresh, tangy cheese just four days old and that tastes of grass and minerals. “People always say ‘anyone can make cheese,’” Lori Babcock says. “But not like this. Because it starts with healthy soil, and healthy grassy pastures for the animals to live on. No herbicides, no pesticides, no GMOs, no shortcuts.”

What brings her all the way to Seattle from her rural farm near Yakima? “Connection,” she says. At the farmers market, she can “look people in the eye,” answering questions like, “How are your animals treated? What’s your process?”

“We make very unique artisan cheeses. People have questions—this isn’t an inexpensive product. And in the larger food system, it would just get lost. People wouldn’t know what it is or what makes it different. When you raise something special, you need that interaction. Education is a huge part of it,” Lori Babcock said.

For the Babcocks, the farmers market is essential because it creates space for relationships and trust—elements that can’t thrive in a more anonymous system. The Babcocks’ farm follows regenerative practices and managed intensive grazing with no chemical inputs. They raise goats, sheep, cattle, pigs, and more—all on pasture—to produce truly sustainable food. “We’re farming for people who can’t farm for themselves,” they say. “And they deserve to know how their food is raised.” The farmers market brings that full circle—building community, honoring the land, and celebrating food.

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Pasta that tastes like the week it was made

At Café Lolo, it all begins with flour. But not just any flour—Alex Halmi and Leah Engel mill their own grains fresh from Bluebird Grain Farms in Winthrop and blend it with Canadian semolina from Shepherd’s Grain create a nutty, toothsome pasta.

Leah Engel and her partner Alex make fresh pasta under the name Café Lolo, using local grains they mill themselves. “Most extruded pasta is 100% semolina. We blend local hard red wheat from Bluebird Grain Farms with Canadian semolina so it still works in the machine, but reflects Washington agriculture,” says Leah Engel.

Their tiny market kitchen is where creativity and hyper-local sourcing collide. “We do one meat and one veggie pasta every week, and it always changes,” says Halmi. “This week it’s pork, cherry, broccoli, and turnip. It sounds weird, but it’s so balanced—sweet, acidic, umami.”
Their stand is lined with notes about where the ingredients come from: pork from Olsen Farms, basil from Alvarez Organics Farm, cherries from Tonnemaker Hill Farm.

Leah met Alex while delivering produce to restaurants—she farming at Tonnemaker Hill Farm, he in kitchens. They married, and ten days later launched their first market at Queen Anne. “We built this on a wedding registry,” Leah Engel says with a laugh. “Our gifts were our pasta extruder and grain mill.”

Being part of a farmers market isn't just about sales. “It’s creative freedom, connection, and total immersion,” she adds. “We talk to farmers like David from Skinny Kitty. He tells us what’s peaking—maybe basil or chives—and that becomes next week’s menu.”

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Baking her own path with croissants: Maddy's Bakeshop

Maddy O’Donnell never expected to be a baker—let alone one selling croissants topped with pepperoncinis and hot honey at a local farmers market. But life, as she puts it, “had other plans.”

Working in high-pressure music PR in New York, Maddy’s path shifted dramatically during a difficult time in her family. “I just needed something to ground me,” she says. “I Googled what do you do when you're sad, and baking came up.”

She started baking in her apartment kitchen, teaching herself everything from pâte à choux to cakes. But it was croissants that stuck. “It’s a three-day process—painstaking and precise—but when they come out right, it feels like magic,” she says. “It just made sense to my brain. It’s like a puzzle.”

She officially launched her business in February 2024 and now sells at several local farmers markets, as well as through select wholesale accounts.

Her pastries are anything but ordinary. “I use traditional techniques, but I love creating playful, seasonal flavors. I mean, I put cream cheese and hot honey on a croissant. Why not?”
The farmers market has become a core part of her business—and her life.

“During COVID, this market was the only place I went. It was how I stayed connected to people. Now, I get to be on the other side of the table, and that feels really full-circle.”

Despite being relatively new to the game, Maddie’s found her niche. “I come from a family in entertainment—writers, musicians, journalists. I was supposed to follow a different path. But this? This is what makes me feel like myself.”

Now, each weekend, Maddy stands behind her market table surrounded by trays of golden pastries—croissants filled with unexpected combinations that somehow just work. What started as a way to cope became a craft, then a calling. “It’s not the life I thought I’d have,” she says, “but it’s the one that fits.”

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Ripe with tradition: Sidhu Farms

Sidhu Farms, a family-run operation based in Puyallup, begins not with a grand business plan, but with a serendipitous harvest.

“We kind of just fell into farming,” says Kamal Sidhu—who helps run the farm and works the markets. “My family has been farming in Punjab, India for generations. When my dad came to the U.S., he ran restaurants and a fuel station. He only bought the land as a retirement project—but there was a blueberry field on it. One summer, my mom, grandma, and siblings picked berries and sold them at the Puyallup Farmers Market. That’s where it all started.”

From those humble beginnings, Sidhu Farms grew into a thriving berry farm known throughout the region. They now grow a rainbow of berries—boysenberries, marionberries, tayberries, black raspberries, gooseberries, strawberries, and of course, blueberries. 

One thing that might surprise new customers is just how ripe the berries are—picked at their peak for maximum flavor.

“We pick everything fully ripe,” Kamal explains. “That’s why it’s so flavorful. You get it fresh, but it won’t last long—and that’s the point. It’s meant to be enjoyed immediately, not sit on a shelf.”

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A family legacy of greens: Wright Brothers Farm

Craig Wright runs Wright Brothers Farm, a family operation that’s been growing food in Washington since 1903. Originally a dairy, the farm was transformed in the 1970s by Craig’s uncles—“60s hippies” who returned home and started one of the state’s first organic farms.

Today, Craig and his siblings continue that legacy, growing 25 to 30 different crops at any given time with a focus on flavor, freshness, and diversity. “We’re a market garden. Anything green is our specialty.”

Customers return for amazing tomatoes, sweet and spicy salad mixes, and super sweet carrots and beets. They also come for the unusual and culturally significant: miner’s lettuce, purslane, and Asian greens like tatsoi, choi sum, komatsuna, and amaranth.

Craig sees each farmers market as an opportunity to educate and connect. “You don’t just hand them produce. You share how to use it, why it matters, and why fresh, local food tastes better.”

“I always ask our customers how they will use their purchase.” At the Kirkland Market, he asked two customers how they’d use purslane. They told him they’d mix it with yogurt—a Turkish tradition he now shares with others.
“You learn something, and then you pass it on to your other customers.”
 
That kind of interaction is what makes farmers markets unique. Shoppers meet the grower, hear the stories, and get real advice on how to use their food. “Most of us love cooking. We use our own product, and we can share it with you.”

By shopping at a farmers market, Craig emphasizes, “You’re supporting local farms and local people. We nurture the land and view ourselves as stewards of the land. That’s true of every local farm you see at a market.”

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Growing beauty on Vashon: Sweet Alyssum Farm

For Alyssa O'Cotter, owner of a flower farm, Sweet Alyssum Farm, on Vashon Island, growing seasonal blooms is more than a business—it's a way of life. On about an 12 acres of land, O'Cotter grows a rotating mix of annuals and perennials: tulips and anemones in the spring, dahlias and sunflowers in the summer. The farm also produces hops for local breweries, combining color and craft.

“I’ve been doing this for seven years,” she says. “Farmers markets have been part of it from the start.” In her first year, she tried several markets, but quickly narrowed her focus to the Queen Anne Farmers Market in Seattle, where she’s been a weekly fixture ever since.

Every Thursday, she loads up the van, takes the ferry, and heads off-island.  “I usually sell out. I’ve built a base of regulars, and I know exactly what sells there,” she explains.

That direct connection with customers is a big reason farmers markets stand out. “I see the same faces week after week. I get to talk to people who love my flowers—that kind of connection doesn’t happen with wholesale.”

O'Cotter’s flowers are known for freshness and longevity. “I harvest fresh for every market and don’t reuse anything from earlier in the week,” she explains. “People tell me the bouquets last a week or more.”

She also focuses on unique, eye-catching varieties. “I choose flowers you don’t see everywhere, with lots of texture. People stop because it looks different.”

Dahlias are a standout. “They grow beautifully here and really draw people in. I often put out buckets so people can build their own bouquets—it creates a bountiful, inviting display.”
What should new customers know? “That these flowers are fresh and they last,” she says. “Even the more delicate ones hold up because they’re harvested and handled the right way. Local, fresh flowers really do make a difference.”

O'Cotter continues to bring something special to every farmers market—a little joy, wrapped in a bouquet.