Summerville Farmer’s Market

Best famers market I have been to. Parking is never an issue compared to going to downtown Charleston. All the vendors are really friendly. The selection is good.

One of the best farmers market in charleston. Way better than the one downtown. Small but a great selection. Fruits and vegetables all look fresh! Plus other miscellaneous folks come through such as someone selling custom peanut butter or even custom home made pasta. Can’t beat it!

LOVED IT! Angel’s Blends has some nice organic juices, morning pick-​me-​ups, and organic coffees infused with honey for coffeeholics like myself.
Charleston Spice Company also has a booth in the S’ville Farmer’s Market. Very nice guy who caters to all cooking needs. There’s everything from African spices to herbal spices to everyday seasonings like cayenne pepper.
Really a nice convenient place to go on a Saturday!

What a wonderful way to spend a Saturday, local farmers market, they have everything from trees to clothes. All of the people are local to Summerville and super friendly. We got free samples of Italian ice and fresh baked breads. If you are looking to give your money to people and not a corporation then you must come here. Get here early when it is less crowded!

Fantastic market! When I moved down a handful of years back, the Summerville Farmer’s Market was just a tiny (and by tiny, I mean a handful of vendor tents) along Doty Ave. A few years later and they moved to the area between the First Citizen’s Bank and the parking garage, and have probably at least quadrupled in size. They have farmers from John’s Island as well as other places, a farmer that grinds fresh grits in front of you, pickles, jams/​jellies, Italian ice, Coastal Coffee Roasters has a tent there, and there has even been a BBQ food truck parked there lately. Even a vendor that carves «Harry Potter» looking wands out of trees and bushes from here to South America and Africa. Pretty outstanding work if I say!
I used to skip the Summerville Farmer’s Market in favor of the Charleston Farmer’s Market due to the vendors, but the past couple of years, I have been perfectly satisfied staying in town. The market in Summerville also has parking going for it. It’s not near the adventure (read: pain) to park in Summerville as it is trying to find a street spot or parking garage downtown. The Charleston market is great downtown, but this is absolutely headed in the right direction!

Not as crowded as downtown but still great stuff. Local food, local people, great time on Saturdays. Parking can be found all around for free.

Lots of great local crafts, products, food, and produce. The strawberries from Shuler Farms are sweet, juicy, and massive. There’s usually a couple of food trucks here as well. A must stop if you’re in the area on a Saturday.

How does someone decide if a farmers market was a good experience? Does it have the items they are looking for? The promotion of local goods for sale? Kid friendly? Perhaps all of these or none of these.
The location is really quaint and parking is ample.
There were many vendors peddling their wares IE: pies, jams, produce, prepared foods, arts and crafts and more. I made a few purchases most of which were fairly priced until I got to the produce truck (I didn’t get the name) and paid $ 9.50 for a cucumber, cauliflower and a bag of beans. Perhaps the young Mexican handling the money, miscalculated.
Overall a nice way to spend 30 – 45 minutes.

So glad this is here. Living in an area with so much awesome local produce, meat, etc. it would be awful not to have such a convenient way to take advantage of it. This is starting to become an every Saturday morning venture for me and my family. The set up changes week to week, however the majority of the same vendors are there every Saturday.
We’ve gotten some awesome local honey from just down the road, raw milk!, homemade local turkey sausage, peach pepper jelly (this stuff is good), tons of good produce, and my personal favorite: Grits! There is just something to be said about good grits. I find it said that many people have never even truely had good ones (no waffle house, ihop, most mom and pop joints, anything you can by at a food lion DONT count!) when they aren’t even that expensive, this guy sells them for $ 2 a bag that will feed a family of 4 several times over. Go get these grits, make these grits, enjoy your life.
Plenty more stuff for us to try here that I’m looking forward too. We noticed a lady last week that had some amazing looking local shrimp. Definitely on the menu soon.

Fantastic farmers market. Has great selections of local produce, baked goods, boiled p’nuts, plants, crafts, and coffee.
A few tips. Find the contraption, jalopy of a thing that grinds out fresh grits. $ 2 a bag. A lady has boiled peanuts, one of the bakers makes incredible strudle, another makes great $ 6 cobblers. Finally, some of the vendor take food stamps and WIC. THAT is freaking awesome. No one should be barred from fresh, good food!

Wife went out as a scout last week to the Summerville Farmers Market and she came back with a glowing review, plus all fingers and toes.
So this Saturday, we took the whole fam damily out to find produce that would hopefully beat the garbage I’ve been scraping out of the bins at walmart lately (not hard to do) but also give us additional reasons to love living in Summerville (equally achievable).
To be up-​front, I wasn’t really hot on the idea of buying produce at a farmers market. It seemed exorbitantly expensive and inefficient. I know, I know… ‘what about the little guy”, but I’m a cold-​hearted man who can usually be caught squeezing out the little man for big-​box corporate automatons when nobody is looking. Yay, capitalism?
The farmers market is right off 17, to the right just after you hit the railroad tracks in downtown Summerville. Nice little area of town with all the historic buildings, tons of nice, shady trees, and plenty of cool stores that you won’t find in your typical sprawling suburban stripmall. This Saturday we had threats of a tropical storm hovering just off the coast so foot-​traffic was down a bit. Still had about 25 – 30 booths going so I guess it is either a bit more heavily traveled or this is just a great way to spend a Saturday for the vendors.
We were extremely impressed with the quality of the produce. Pickling cukes were nice and dark green without the bleached-​out look you find at most supermarkets.
— Peaches? Awesome
— Tomatoes? Awesome
— Sweet Corn? Sucked…
just kidding. It was awesome as well. Pretty much everything there is cheaper than you’d get at Walmart and about 10x the quality of Publix. Whole Foods? WF probably buys from these same vendors and charges you 10x. (see my whole foods review)
Here’s the trick for the uninitiated at a farmers market.
Give the whole place a walk-​through before you buy anything. Prices can vary widely from booth to booth. Much of the time what looks like the best produce not only
— costs the most
— isn’t the best out there.
Here’s an example from my trip.
My wife bought peaches from one unnamed stand the first week which looked great and tasted equally so. No match that I’ve found in a grocer within the past 10ish years. This time we gave a shot to a stand which frankly had ugly peaches, but the prices were dynamite — less than ½ of the previous week’s vendor we used.
Verdict? The ugly (and 50% cheaper) peaches were slightly better than the pretty ones. Makes my decision that much easier next time — they all look the same in the dark, right?
Second tip is to ask anyone older or «authentic-​looking» (whatever that means) as to how to pick the best stuff. Thanks to Rivers produce for hooking my wife and I up on some additional knowledge about picking tomatoes.
When I saw a tomato «cracking» at the top, I’d leave it alone — likewise with my wife who is a tomato aficionado at it’s most hard-​core, depraved state. They called it a «catfish eye» and told us that’s when a tom is at its best.
We took the gamble and you know what? Great stuff. Would I have willingly picked a watermelon with a yellow & bruised bottom? Not until the farmers’ market. Best I’ve ever had. Color me city-​boy if you want.
Best part, IMO is a little stroll around downtown before or after. I’m still waiting for some breakfast vendors to set up shop there but if anyone wants to check out the «greasy-​spoon-​looking» Carolina Joe’s right next to it before I do… friend me up on here and maybe we can all hook up for some breakfast.
Anyway, this is yet another reason to like Summerville. It was very friendly, low key even though there were plenty of dogs and kids. Everyone had a smile, prices were awesome and quality was high. In all, a great way to spend an hour w/​the family or getting to know the neighbors.