Visit to the Farmers Markets

On Sunday, the skin and blisters decided that they would like to go to a farmers' market. It was a beautiful day, so we decided we would go to Landsdowne Park first (where the Ottawa Organic Farmers' Market is held), and then go to the Parkdale Market. This photo is of one end of the Cattle Castle building - do you see the cattle head at the bottom of the photo?

Vendors at the Ottawa Organic Farmers' Market are only allowed to sell things they grow or produce themselves - they are not allowed to purchase items from others and sell them (vendors are the Parkdale Market are allowed to do that). We saw a wide variety of vegetables and fruit, flowers, honey, jewelery, jams and jellies, dog treats, baked goods, and some artsy stuff for the garden too.

Lots of very colourful produce for sale!

And it wasn't just produce, there were also these huge beautiful dahlias.

These were called Dinnerplate Dahlias, and they literally were the size of a dinnerplate!

Oh these peppers were so colourful!

These peppers reminded me of Christmas lights, because of their shape.

Several vendors had the Lisianthus flowers, which I'd never seen before. They were available in several colours, including the unique dark purple. Although the Lisianthus is very beautiful and shaped like a rose, they had no scent - which was disappointing.

A plethora of plums! More colourful fruit. There were several vendors with apples, peaches, and nectarines too.

Interesting multi-coloured peppers!

The other end of the Cattle Castle - with the flying cow! I bought Freda some honey and maple-walnut fudge! The S&Bs bought a variety of produce.

We are now leaving to go to the Parkdale Market. The Parkdale Market has a few pluses, in my opinion. You don't have to pay $5 for parking, and the produce is quite a bit cheaper as it is not in the trendy Glebe neighbourhood, so there is not the snob factor in the price. The products were about 20% cheaper at Parkdale and looked just as nice. It is a smaller market so it does not have the same variety of products that the Ottawa Organic Market (OOM) has.

The Parkdale Market vendors had some interesting multicoloured heirloom beets - I didn't see any of these heirloom variety produce at the OOM. They lost a lot of their colour in cooking. :(

The carrots look colourful, but they were white inside (after peeling), and are just as unappetizing as ordinary carrots. (Sorry, but I had to say it!)

Very colourful display of peppers. We bought a big bag of red peppers for $5 - probably less than 1/4 what it would be in the grocery store, even at this time of the year.

Multi-coloured zucchini, and eggplant.

Some brightly coloured Gerbera flowers.

There were more Lisanthus at the Parkdale market too, with some different colours and cheaper, to boot.