By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant
Many municipalities throughout Upstate New York are home to at least one farm store or farmers markets, where shoppers can find fresh, local produce. Many farm stores include activities and events while featuring their own goods and sometimes goods from local farms. Farmers markets include the goods of multiple farms, allowing shoppers greater variety.
Ontario Orchards in Oswego (https://ontarioorchards.com) offers both the expected seasonal produce and also a plethora of CNY-sourced goods. It’s a great place to build a care package for a CNY-er who has moved from the area or to stock up on your own local favorites.
Beak & Skiff in Lafayette (https://beakandskiff.com) offers several points of sale on the campus. There’s the gift shop, 1911 Tasting Room and Tavern and the bakery (don’t miss the fresh apple fritters, made only in the fall!). With the children’s activities available and you-pick opportunities, it’s easy to make Beak & Skiff a full-day outing for the family.
It’s obvious that the City of Geneva grew up around Red Jacket Orchards (https://redjacketorchards.com), as the farm still maintains orchards across the highway and alongside big box stores. Like an agricultural oasis in a growing city, Red Jacket sells its own cold pressed juice, fresh fruit, and numerous other local products.
The Apple Shed in Newark (www.theappleshed.com) is a seasonal farm market open spring through autumn. In addition to the array of gifts, produce and local goods, the farm makes fresh doughnuts and fudge and serves light lunches. The farm has a few fun children’s activities, goats and a few chickens. During the fall, take a wagon ride though the apple orchard.
Macedon’s Long Acre Farms (https://longacrefarms.com) operates a market that covers gifts, food and produce, but the farm’s fall activities each autumn weekend really make this farm market worth a visit. Children up through around age 12 will enjoy hours of play in the Back Forty play area, and visitors of all ages would enjoy the Amazing Maize Maze, one of the Northeast’s largest corn mazes. The farm also offers wood -fired pizza and its JD Wine Cellar, adjacent to the farm property.
Syracuse Regional Market (www.cnyregionalmarket.com) is open year-round, but it really comes to life during the summer and fall with local produce filling the tables every Thursday and Saturday. The market is large enough to spend most of a day roaming among the vendors and finding all sorts of produce, plants, value-added products and other local goods.
City of Rochester Public Market (www.cityofrochester.gov/publicmarket/) is open Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday with more than 300 vendors of all sorts, as one of the region’s largest farmers’ markets.
Elmwood Village Farmers Market in Buffalo (www.elmwoodmarket.org) sells only producers’ own goods. Sellers don’t resell others’ goods. That can help shoppers get to know their farmer and how their food is produced. The market is open Saturdays.
Oswego, Fulton, Pulaski
Oswego County holds three popular farmers’ markets this time the of year. In Pulaski it begins June 19. It runs from 4 to 8 p.m. every Friday through the end of August at South Park. In Fulton the market is held from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. every Saturday at the Fulton YMCA, 715 W. Broadway. The Oswego. Oswego Farmers’ Market, which begins July 11, takes place from 3 to 8:30 p.m. every Thursday at West First Street, between Bridge and Oneida streets. The markets in Fulton and Oswego run through October. For more information, call 315-343-7681.