The NJ Department of Agriculture’s website has a comprehensive list of neighborhood markets by county. For the last two summers, I found myself referring to that list frequently to find a convenient market for a last-minute produce run.
This season, I realized a visual representation would be more helpful to me, and on the off chance that other locals might feel the same way, I created this public calendar. Included are all farmers’ markets in the northern counties of New Jersey, as listed on the Jersey Fresh website. Now, when I realize on a Tuesday afternoon that I’d like a fresh pepper for my salad that evening, I can see if there’s a farmer’s market nearby on that particular day.
How to use this calendar
Click on each calendar entry to pull up more detailed information on that market.
Unless you are referring to this calendar in late April or early November, you’ll probably notice that some of the days are so packed with farmers’ market events that they are completely unreadable. You can solve this problem in one of two ways:
- Use the Agenda view. It will show you all markets in an easy-to-read list.
- Eliminate the counties that are of little interest to you via the down-arrow at the top left of the calendar. Uncheck the appropriate boxes, so that only your local county is visible.
If you have your own Google Calendar, you can add these markets to your personal calendar either by individual event, or by importing the entire calendar.
Errata
There were a few cases where a particular market’s start and end dates were difficult to decipher, and in those events, I made educated guesses. Additionally, there may have been errors in my transcription, or changes made to the markets after I added them to the calendar. I recommend that you check the Jersey Fresh website before setting out to visit any market for the first time. Also, if you do find any incorrect data, I’d love for you to leave a comment so that I may fix it.
Recommended reading
I am by no means a local food expert. My kids would live on Pop Tarts if they could, and I have a Dr. Pepper habit from which I don’t particularly want to be weaned. But over the last few years, I have learned more about where our supermarket foods come from and what they are doing to our health, and with each summer I become more enamored with the farmers’ market. If you’re interested in some related reading, I recommend the books below, most of which I’ve read myself, and the rest of which are on my to-read list.
I’ve been more and more a locavore for many years. We’ve belonged to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm since 1994 and we’re lucky to have a farmers market 2 miles from our house where we buy things we don’t get at the farm. When the farmers market isn’t running, we drive to the various local farms that have retail outlets to buy poultry, meat, and cheese. We also have a favorite orchard about a half hour away where we pick peaches, plums, pears, and apples, from July to October, and a blueberry farm a little bit further away where we try to pick enough to freeze to last us through the winter. Once you get used to local flavor, it is very hard to go back to supermarket produce.
I love the idea of a CSA, and have actually considered it, but before it can be of real value to us, I think we have to start liking vegetables more than we currently do. We’ve never been huge veggie fans, nor have we felt particularly adventurous in trying new ones, but I’m hoping that with time, we’ll expand our repertoire enough to make a CSA worthwhile!
[…] Also on the right sidebar, you may notice the Farmers’ Market Summer button. I set out on Sunday morning to fill my personal calendar with the dates of my most local farmers’ markets (tis the season, you know!) as well as those near my parents’ house, in case I was in dire need of some radishes while visiting the folks (hey, it could happen!) and it occurred to me that it wouldn’t take that much more time to just put all of the markets in all of the northern counties of New Jersey on their own calendars and make them public. Maybe some of you who live around here would find that useful? I hope so. Feel free to pass the link on to your local friends, too. It took a little bit longer than I’d expected, actually, and I’d hate for the effort to have been in vain! Check it out: Jersey Fresh for the Summer […]
Using IE? Can you see the book widget under “Recommended Reading” on this page? http://tinyurl.com/nr7g9w Works in FF and Chrome but not IE.