While many Rochester residents food shop where it is warm, some hardy souls still come to the Public Market to buy locally grown produce like potatoes, onions, carrots, parsnips, turnips, shallots, cabbage, apples. Kept in cold storage, these vegetables and fruits are available all winter long.Many thanks to farmers like Brent Bushart for potatoes and apples, Wally and Carol Liese's daughter Colleen and helper Bob Cole for kale and carrots, Anita Amsler for cabbage and onions, Carol and Kevin Datthyn for finger potatoes and shallots, Rick Austin for eggs and locally grown beef, Alex Flowers with pussy willows and dried beans.
Phil Munson is raising crops like bok choy during the winter in a high tunnel. John Bolton is keeping us supplied with fresh greens grown hydroponically.Several farmers have sugar bushes like Carolyn Czarnecki in Attica and Anita Amsler and Louie Bell in Walworth. When the sap starts rising, temperatures rise above freezing during the day, but drop below at night, they will be tapping their maple trees.
Other farmers like Deana Jones and her parents Ginny and Gary Eaton are turning on the heat in their greenhouses to start germinating seeds for planting when thelast frost is over.
Other vendors like Rick Bohme buy produce wholesale which they sell at the market year round. Even in the depth of winter, we can often find red, yellow and orange peppers, juicy oranges, hydroponically grown tomatoes and ripe bananas at the market.
