The Farmers’ Market bluegrass band plays a tune called “Cold and Frosty Morning” early Saturday, and one guitarist wears gloves. Milkweed plants have gone to seed along the fence near the donut tent. But even with chilly morning temperatures, the Oak Park Farmers’ Market is packed with tote bag-laden shoppers, stroller and wagons.
The market winds down next weekend, so this is the last chance for Oak Parkers to stock up on fruits, veggies, flowers, organic meats and cheese, bread, jellies, vinegars, mushrooms and honey — straight from the farm. The market takes place Saturday mornings 7 a.m.-1 p.m. in the Pilgrim Congregational Church parking lot at 460 Lake St. It’s harvest time and the produce is abundant.
“It’s been a good season,” says Karen Skibbe, of Skibbe Farms in Eau Claire, Mich. “The crops were good this year. We had some rainy Saturdays, but the sales were good.”
Karen and husband Walt Skibbe farm 100 acres near St. Joseph, Mich. “On Saturdays we get up at 1:15 a.m. — and that’s Eastern time,” says Karen Skibbe. “We load up the trucks in the barn and drive two hours” to Oak Park. “We nap when we get here,” before setting up their tables of apple varieties, pears, raspberries and blueberries, Asian pears, grapes in assorted colors and tomatoes. Granddaughter Alaina, age six, is Pumpkin Saleswoman — greeting customers from the back of a truck. “She’s a hard worker,” says proud grandmother.
A Skibbe specialty is grape juice and apple cider — sold by the gallon and half-gallon and made on a “noisy, hundred year old Mt. Gilead apple press.” Farm-picked apples pass through a grinder, various screens and hydraulic pumps which squeeze juice out–”three gallons to the bushel.” The taste is remarkably fresh. “It’s not pasteurized,” says Skibbe. That shouldn’t matter, since the cider is sure to disappear quickly from the fridge.
The Oak Park Farmers’ Market is one of the oldest in the country, starting up in the mid 1970s and providing a great example for other, more recent markets to follow. Charity groups hold bake sales every week. On this Saturday, Mothers of Pre Schoolers (MOPS) and the Oak Park Concert Chorale sell pies, cakes and quickbreads.
Nearby, the banjo player takes a verse of “Water Bound and I Can’t Get Home.” The Farmers’ Market bluegrass band arrives at 6:30 a.m. and starts out in the church basement, says fiddling ringleader Mike Casey. That’s when they play “experimental chords, like G# demolished,” he jokes. When the neighbors can tolerate it, the band moves to their spot on the north end of the market.
The group is a come-and-go assortment of fiddles, banjos, mandolins, ukes and exotic percussion instruments such as an “ass jaw bone” and bodhran drums. Eleven-year-old Connor Ostrow — fiddler — calls out “Red Haired Boy — in A” and the tune starts around the group. The band winters in the Buzz Café lounge over in the Oak Park Arts District on Saturday mornings.
Halloween is approaching, and the pumpkins at the Farmers’ Market are one of a kind. Ted’s Greenhouse, of Tinley Park sells enormous pumpkins — some of them white and yellow — and odd-shaped gourds. “Those are for a giant pumpkin contest the Cook County Farm Bureau holds every year in Homer Glenn,” says Dan Biernacki, son of the original ‘Ted.’ “This year’s winner was 298 pounds. It’s a cult thing,” he laughs. Biernacki says he grows his monster pumpkins and unusual gourds on a greenhouse compost heap, “stuff goes crazy on it.” In case you’re wondering, farmers use a “pumpkin blanket” with reinforced handles to move the gargantuan gourds.
Ted’s sells indoor and outdoor plants at the market. “We grow about 60,000 herbs every year,” says Biernacki. Shoppers snap up unicorn chives, purple sage, Roman chamomile, spearmint, cilantro and mindboggling varieties of basil. Purplish potted millet plants, tower like corn stalks over the Ted’s display. “Millet is a grain,” says Biernacki. “It’s ornamental. Finches will come and eat the millet seeds.”
Ted’s also specializes in landscaping plants – which right now include mums in yellow, purple, maroon, orange and red. Landscapers also work with “ornamental edibles” like purple-and-sage colored cabbages, Swiss chard, mustard, red kale and dinosaur kale. You may have seen some of Ted’s landscaping flora in planters on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile or State Street.
Ted’s also works with the Cook County Jail, running a greenhouse program for inmates, some of whom can receive their Master Gardener’s certificates. “It’s educational. So many people have so little experience with living things,” says Biernacki.
In the eastern corner of the market, Wettstein Organic Farms of Carlock, Ill. sell organic meats. Animals are “taken to a USDA Organic Federally Inspected locker plant” for processing, according to farmer Emily Wettstein. The Wettsteins raise grass-fed beef, pork, duck, turkey and pasture-based chicken. Philip Stoller, cousin, shows a reporter photos of moveable chicken coops in a pasture. They keep birds safe from “skunks, raccoons and red tail hawks,” he says. “The pigs [on the Wettstein farm] are dirt-hogs. They get all the mud they need to be happy.” The Wettsteins also sell free-range eggs. “In the peak of the season we sell 180 dozen eggs every week,” says Stoller.
The weather is heating up and the second-to-the last Farmers’ Market Saturday is turning into a glorious day. A crossing guard shuttles a father and two toddlers south across Lake Street — the family stroller is now occupied by three large pumpkins. On the sidewalk, Illinois State Representative Camille Lilly greets shoppers and asks them to sign the petition to get on the ballot. “Have a blessed day,” she says. And the bluegrass band strikes up “Boys of Blue Hill.”