With reporting by Nova Berger, CHS Intern
At the height of the growing season during Seattle’s longest days of sunlight, the Capitol Hill Farmers Market expands to add another weekly opportunity for neighbors and those passing through busy Capitol Hill Station to put something delicious on the table. Capitol Hill’s Tuesday night markets are back from June to September, giving shoppers what they need to create nutritious meals during the work week.
The season re-start of the Tuesday night farmers market takes on a different rhythm from the shopping done on Sundays with an emphasis on providing meals. Vendors like Wendy Simply Cooks offer ready-to-go dishes that cater to various dietary needs.
“Easy heat up, easy clean up,” Wendy Deaton says.
Deaton highlights her colorful salad bowls and the newly introduced Farro bowl with roasted beets, strawberries, and kale.
The Capitol Hill Tuesday Night Farmers Market is back this summer, boasting fresh offerings and hours running from 3 to 7 PM.
Building on last year’s success when the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance launched the Tuesday night Capitol Hill expansion last summer, the Tuesday market aims to be a one-stop shop for quick and easy weeknight meals, featuring a diverse range of local vendors and exciting new activities.
Held above Capitol Hill Station along E Barbara Bailey Way, the Tuesday market is a seasonal addition with a focus on convenience and community. Vendors like Windy N Ranch, Pink Moon, and Seattle Pops will be familiar to Sunday market shoppers, while others are special Tuesday additions.
As with Sunday’s providers, community collaboration is a key aspect of the market. Hot food vendors are required to source at least 20% of their ingredients from fellow vendors, fostering a supportive network. Cafe Lolo, serving fresh pasta bowls, exemplifies this initiative, with 90% of their products locally grown.
Organic Fernandez is another important vendor adding a rainbow of seasonal fruits and vegetables, while Pink Moon offers unique items like pink melons, heirloom tomatoes, garlic, and potted plants.
Some vendors, like Hierophant Meadery and Shroom Champ, provide at the markets year-round. Hierophant Meadery offers mead, non-alcoholic beverages, and healthy soda alternatives, while Shroom Champ promotes the benefits of functional mushrooms for a healthy mind and body.
Beyond shopping, the market offers live music and seating areas for relaxation.
The market also prioritizes supporting the BIPOC community, with vendors like Papa Tony’s Hot Sauce, Yes Ma! Backyard Farm, Lily’s Salvadoran Cuisine, Big Dumpling Energy, Pan de Selva, Fernandez Farms, Cabrera Farms, Farias Farms, and Simple Bloom representing diverse flavors and dishes.
Mayra Sabrina of Pan de Selva describes her Mexican and Central American-inspired pan dulce, incorporating seasonal produce from neighboring vendors. Lily Salvadorian offers traditional Salvadoran food with gluten-free and catering options, while Big Dumpling Energy serves various dumpling flavors, including vegan options.
Open to suggestions, the market encourages community feedback to enhance the growing Tuesday night experience. Who knows — maybe someday it will also add more nights of the week.
The Capitol Hill Farmers Market Tuesday night markets run through September 24th. Learn more at seattlefarmersmarkets.org/chfm.
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Good, the way to reduce crime isn’t just more cops (which we need); but actually having a vibrant city with people on the streets shopping, etc.
That’s how you stop open air drug markets or people doing hard drugs in public.
Get more foot traffic, get more police, get more businesses and residences in a tight spot – and that’s how you get things going.
Empty store fronts, gas stations and parking lots all contribute to urban decay
Activation is part of the solution, but there were still people smoking and dealing fentanyl and meth openly in Cal Anderson Park during the Farmer’s Market. Until the city leadership grows a spine and the residents of Capitol Hill stop enabling drug markets and drug addicts to take over our parks and business districts, the urban decay and violence will consider. Too many have normalized this behavior. “Harm reduction” they say, Vibrant cities across the globe don’t allow this behavior in public spaces. The level of denial about this is a uniquely west coast phenomenon.
Most of the “vibrant cities across the globe” that don’t have the same problems as us don’t avoid them by policing people more or putting more people in jail (the US has already won the per-capita imprisonment content by a landslide), they have actual social safety nets & treatment programs that keep it from becoming a massive problem in the first place. They also tend to offer, as the above commenter noted, much more vibrant city life that gives residents incentive to leave their homes & opportunities to engage with the community surrounding them.
These issues aren’t going to get fixed overnight, and to be clear, I don’t think anyone is claiming a single farmer’s market is going to stop open drug use in this city. But it will make the area more pleasant & welcoming for people looking for something to do on a Tuesday night that isn’t Netflix or video games, and that is a better start than most.
All that said, I’m very curious: a. Did you actually see people “smoking and dealing fentanyl openly” while at the market last night? And B. What exactly is it that you think residents should be doing to address the problem, since you appear to think we’re all collectively encouraging it somehow?
These people have brainworms that cause them to relate absolutely everything to the drug users that live rent free in their heads, I wouldn’t worry too much about trying to hold an actual conversation with them
You nailed it Meg – one of the constant things posters like Reality get wrong is thinking that we simply haven’t punished people into correctness across all of society, and the vision of correctness is better than any other vision that could possibly exist despite…all the seemingly uniquely American problems that Americans can’t square given willful blindness and arrogance.
Surely Hierophant Meadery offers mead, not wine?
:) Corrected and clarified
Thanks :)