It’s the perfect time to gather up plants that the farmers grew themselves. Starting at the south end of the Market, stop at Dyer’s Farm, an original Market vendor. In addition to hanging baskets at variety of prices, Sherri Dyer said, “We have a large selection of hot peppers, and sell several thousand geraniums each year.”

After leaving Dyers’ stand head towards the main pavilion, stopping as you leave the south pavilion to visit two farms on your left and right. Steve Otrembiak and his family, of Otrembiak Farm, grow unusual varieties of herbs such as berrgarten sage, garlic chives and French tarragon, and often have pots of basil nearly ready for pesto. Don’t miss their dahlia tubers and seedlings of collards, Brussels sprouts and more.

Chris Lincoln of New Minglewood Farm raises at least 25 varieties of tomatoes, with 20 of those being heirlooms. “For some plants, I use soil blocks, which I make with a mold,” Chris explained, “The advantages are less plastic, and the plants don’t become root bound.” Chris already has tomato plants three feet high, for gardeners who just can’t wait.

Just past the Market’s shed, in the main pavilion on your right, is Scotch Ridge Berry Farm, which offers more than the berries. During a recent visit, Charles Holub pointed out potted herbs and said, “We offer a many tomato varieties, grown mostly from seed, including heirlooms,” He combats disease with a spray containing the beneficial Bacillus subtilis.

Butternut Ridge Farm and Burger Farm are just a few paces away. Both feature hanging baskets, potted flowers and vegetable starts. Debbie Stevens of Butternut Ridge commented that her father in law was one of the original vendors and today his great grandchildren sometimes help at the Market. Their tables overflow with colorful flowering and green vegetable plants, and a profusion of flowering plants hang in every corner.

Linda Burger of Burger Farm remembered their early days, “Our first crop was radishes which we took to the Menands Market on a motorcycle.” Their farm has grown considerably, and today Linda said, “We have two greenhouses full of herbs, begonias and hanging baskets.”

Across from Burger and Butternut, Clark’s Dahlia Gardens has bountiful hanging tomato baskets and of course dahlias. Anna Mae Clark, a second generation Market vendor, explained, “We have early blooming varieties of dahlias in several colors; they’ll bloom now, and they’ll bloom until frost.”

Turn toward the sidewalk in the north pavilion to visit Balet Flowers and Design. Suzanne Balet Haight, another second generation Market vendor said, “We like to specialize in traditional perennials such as delphiniums, sedum and sweet william. But we also offer the ‘Perennial Plant of the Year’, chosen for long blooming and easy maintenance.” This year’s winner is a variegated Solomon Seal.

Across from Balet, Jim and Melissa Stannard of Stannard Farm have seen changes in customers’ preferences since they their early days. “In Saratoga,” Jim said, “People lately have been looking for individually potted plants, so they can mix and match, rather than buying six-packs or full flats.” Among their best sellers are potted herbs, and hanging baskets featuring two or more varieties, such as mixtures of Wade petunias, or Calibrachoa (“Million Bells”).

The northernmost vendor is on the lawn and past Stannards. Dawn Foglia of Wild Things Rescue Nursery packs her tent with all sorts of native plants. This year she has some lovely smaller sized varieties, such as Iris cristata, which is only five inches tall when in bloom, Uvularia (Merry Bells), and bloodroot.

If your hands are full, you can drop off purchases (Saturday only) at the ‘Veggie Valet’ tent. The volunteers from Friends of the Market will hold your purchases until you return with a vehicle.

Sweet Spring Farm Frittata

6 large eggs

4 ounces Sweet Spring Farm fresh Chevre

Chives (finely chopped)

1 tablespoon cream or milk

1 tablespoon butter

Salt and pepper to taste

Pre-heat broiler. In a large non-stick skillet that is also oven-proof, melt the butter over medium high heat. Meanwhile whisk together the eggs, cream, chives, salt, and pepper. Pour the egg mixture into the skillet. With a heat-proof spatula, gently pull the eggs from the sides into the middle of the pan as they cook to allow the uncooked eggs to run underneath. When the eggs just begin to firm up, but are still wet on top, add dollops of the cheese. Place the skillet under the broiler for about 5 minutes, or until the eggs are fully set and beginning to turn golden. Remove from the broiler, run a spatula along the edge to loosen and slide onto a cutting board. Cut into wedges and serve.

Serves 4.

“Most of the New York wheat we buy comes from North Country Farms in Watertown who also mill the wheat,” Matt said. The group of farmers used to sell their grain into the conventional commodity market, but now it mostly supplies select New York outlets.

Matt’s passion for baking traces back to his childhood on his father’s small farmstead in Wilton, and later in Ottawa where he worked in a supermarket bakery. The bread dough was not mixed and raised in-house but came frozen to be thawed, allowed to rise, and then baked. “I like to refer to these as ‘fakeries,’” he chuckles.

From there the conversation shifts from wheat to bread, real bread, Rock Hill Bread, which his company has been offering at the Saratoga Springs’ (Summer) Farmers’ Market for about ten years. Matt says that farmers’ markets are important to the decentralization of agriculture. “The answer to good food lies not in putting organic foods in big-box stores, which is just another version of the centralization of large farms, but in the food grown locally and sustainably, and sold in many farmers’ markets.”

Michael and Wendy London, well known proprietors of Mrs. London’s Bake Shoppe on Broadway, began Rock Hill breads in their farmhouse kitchen in the Town of Greenwich, after their original bakery and café on Phila Street had closed. Matt, with his brother Josh and others worked there from about 1987, and then partnered with the Londons in 1990.

In 1994, Matt moved Rock Hill Bakery to Moreau. Farmers’ markets were a key to their success in the early days and still are. “We were at Union Square Market in New York City 25 years ago when there were only five vendors, and today there are as many as 150.” As Upstate residents became more knowledgeable about food and more interested in buying local, the business has focused on farmers’ markets and restaurants closer to home.

Matt values being in the Saratoga Farmers’ Market, noting that the City government wants it to be there. “It’s wonderful that Saratoga is progressive enough to truly value its farmers’ market and to be a part of making it better every year.”

The customers also value Rock Hill’s presence with its yeast raised and sour dough breads and pastries like scones and biscotti which are also produced in the bakery’s two French brick ovens. New York Magazine has called their sourdough bread the most flavorful in Manhattan, and last year, New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton called their rye bread the best in New York City.

Rock Hill’s breads are naturally leavened, using different starters and some uncultivated yeasts. “It’s a long, slow, gentle process to make these breads,” Matt said. A typical ‘day’ begins around four p.m., when they make four different starters. About five hours later, they begin mixing the starters into more flour, water and salt, and put two more starters to work.

The ‘bench crew’ arrives at 3 a.m. to cut the risen dough into loaf-sized pieces and gently shape them into loaves, which proof for one to six hours depending on the bread. Faster rising breads go into the ovens around four a.m. The final bake of the day occurs around 4 p.m., a full 24 hours after the crew made the starter the previous day.

Every Saturday from May through October the fresh-baked bread and the pastries arrive at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market. Matt emphasizes simplicity in the bread and in the foods he eats. This recipe for croutons to add to a salad will convince even the pickiest eater that salads are delicious.

Jalapeno Cheddar Croutons — Spice up Tonight’s Tossed Salad

Ingredients  (Ingredients marked * are available at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market.)

Click here to print the recipe – PDF

2 thick slices Rock Hill jalapeno-cheddar bread, cut into cubes *

4 tbsp good extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt to taste

2 cloves minced garlic, or more or less to taste *

Fresh, chopped dill

Mixed salad greens *

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan on medium.

Add the garlic and a pinch of salt, cook for about 30 seconds.

Add the cubed bread, turn as needed, and cook until all sides are browned.

Drain the croutons on a wooden cutting board.

Toss croutons in a bowl with fresh dill and salt to taste.

Toss the salad greens with olive oil and vinegar or lemon juice.

While the croutons are still warm, put them on top of the salad.

Chicks definitely can travel long distances from commercial hatcheries to the farms because their bodies have stored egg yolk to supply them with nutrition for the trip. This is also true for baby chicks hatched out by a mother hen in a barn. The broody hen doesn’t even leave her nest for a day or two, and only then starts to show the peeps what to eat.

Our four farmers who raise these fryer- or roaster-sized chickens have extensive experience with these birds and have learned what works for them. All raise the birds humanely and carefully, so they have plenty of room to move around and be normal chickens that can flap their wings and scratch in their bedding indoors, or chase bugs and eat grass outdoors.

All raise a fast growing hybrid called a Cornish-Rock, bred for especially large breasts and fast growth, which was developed from the White Cornish originally from Great Britain, and the larger White Plymouth Rock produced in the United States nearly 200 years ago. The Kilpatrick farm also raises a somewhat slower growing four-way hybrid, the Freedom Ranger which originated in France.

Liza and David Porter of Homestead Artisans, as well as Michael Kilpatrick of Kilpatrick Family Farm, raise the chicks first in a heated brooder, then move them outdoors to pasture. Liza said, “We intensively pasture our chickens outdoors on the grass, with their houses moved daily. They live as chickens, rather than ‘poultry units,’ where thousands of birds might be in one house. And they return their manure in small quantities all over the grass.”

Michael Kilpatrick commented that their chicks spend two or three weeks in a brooder then move to the outdoors, “They’re grown in floorless pens we move once, if not twice a day, where they eat grass and bugs and whatever tasty morsel that happens by, along with their chicken feed.”

Arnold and Marilyn Grant of M&A Farm and Dick and Peggy Ayers of Brookside Farm keep their birds inside. Peggy recalled, “We used to raise them outside, but weather and predators were causing problems. Now we raise them in a heated (when needed) and well ventilated barn.”

The Grants manage their birds in a similar way. “The barn has three sections and they have a lot of room to move around,” Arnold explained. His chicks arrive every two weeks, and once the first batch is in his customer’s hands, that section of the barn is ready to receive 100 more peeping chicks.

Liza said, “The flavor and texture are excellent. They must be tried to be believed.” Arnold Grant feels, “The most important part of flavor is what we feed them.” His feed is locally mixed at a nearby feed mill. Liza commented that pasturing adds extra nutrients to the chicken meat.

Various studies back this statement. For example, a recent on-line article from National Geographic reported that pasture-raised poultry contained less total fat, less saturated fat and more Vitamin A and Omega-3 fatty acids, than standard USDA data for what is typically found in grocery stores.

The Ayers’ birds will make their summer debut at the opening Saturday of the Summer Market, May 4. They offer whole or cut up chicken. Porters’ and Arnolds’ whole roasting and frying birds will be ready on May 8. Kilpatrick’s cut-up chickens and chicken cuts will be ready at varying times of year; just ask at their stand. These chickens are delicious butterflied and grilled, roasted, curried, fried or stewed, as illustrated by the following two recipes.

Simple Roasted Chicken
Recipe from Liza Porter: “This is the world’s easiest recipe and the rewards are fabulous.”

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Put one whole roasting chicken in a pan and roast for 20 minutes per pound.

Remove from the oven, and let the chicken rest on a carving platter for about 15 minutes. Carve the chicken and serve.

Crock Pot Chicken with Pineapple
Recipe from Peggy Ayers, Brookside Farm: ”Three generations of our family enjoy this recipe.”

1 15 oz. bottle of Teriyaki sauce
½ bottle (nearly a cup) of soy sauce
1 large can of chunked pineapple
1 chicken, cut in pieces or left whole

Cook in a large crock pot on high for about four hours or until done.

Discard the pineapple, because it loses flavor. Add more pineapple from a second can if desired.

Shred the chicken and serve with rice.

Stay tuned for news of the market’s 35th anniversary celebration this summer. In the meantime, thanks for your support over the years!

Dawn calls herself a fifth generation German gardener and she’s also a second generation farmers’ market vendor. What had started out as a backyard hobby for her mother, Joanne, eventually became a farmers’ market business in the 1980s. Dawn remembers accompanying her mother to the original Troy farmers’ market, where they offered fresh and dried flower arrangements.

After receiving a degree in fine arts, Dawn found herself walking down a different garden path. She and a friend used to trudge into the woods ahead of loggers and dig up unusual plants that might be destroyed. Now fifteen year later, her aptly named “Wild Things Rescue Nursery” is known throughout the area and beyond for its unique collection of rare and native plants, and for the seeds she collects and exchanges with other enthusiasts.

“Like my mother’s did, my business also started as a hobby,” she said, “I became obsessed with plants, and was drawn more and more to the native plants, especially the precious woodland species. When I learned how to propagate them, the hobby blossomed into a full time business.”

Anyone who visits Dawn’s nursery will see her artistic abilities on display in the extensive beds that surround her home. She rattles off the names of plants, using common and scientific names with equal ease, but she prefers the scientific, because common names often apply more than one plant variety.

One of Wild Things’ specialties is the Trillium. “In addition to many varieties of trillium, we feature a wide variety of native prairie plants because birds and butterflies need their nectar, and they can serve as host plants for some insects’ larvae.” Among her smaller woodland plants are golden seal, ginseng, waterleaf and Virginia bluebell. In boggy areas, she grows native orchids and pitcher plant.

Another specialty at Wild Things is plants with variegated leaves. Lowered amounts of chlorophyll in sections of the leaves result in splashes of pale green to nearly white or yellow-green, which contrast brightly with the traditional dark green. Some varieties of variegated plants are wild goldenrod, forsythia and burnet (Sanguisorba) a distant relative of the rose.

As if this collection weren’t large enough, Dawn is now propagating uncommon native trees and shrubs, such as choke berry (Aronia), Sassafras, spice bush (Lindera), Virginia magnolia, and witch hazel (Hamamelis).

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