Everywhere we travel, we look for a good Farmers Market, especially one within walking distance as we usually don’t have transportation. Charleston has a wonderful one in Marion Square, a large park in the historic downtown area. We rode our bikes there this morning as it’s just a five minute ride away. Besides a wide variety of locally grown fruits and vegetables, we found artists of all types with juried arts and crafts, live entertainment, food to buy and eat (we’ll go for breakfast or lunch next Saturday), etc. The market is there from 8 am to 2 pm every Saturday from April until December. The photo at the left shows only a small portion of the venders. One told us they are open until it gets “too cold.” We said to him, “You don’t know too cold.” Too cold here is 40 degrees.......above zero. There were even pony rides for children. While it seems that this would attract tourists, we know locals go there too. There’s another one on Thursdays in North Charleston, which we’ll also visit. That will be a 15 minute drive, however.
We bought locally grown peppers, zucchini, peaches, cantaloupe, corn on the cob, and onions. Tonight, we’ll grill shrimp with some of our fresh vegetables. When I think of peaches, the state that comes to mind is Georgia. Actually, South Carolina is the second largest producer of peaches in America, after California. The peach is South Carolina’s state fruit.
The nice thing is that the market is every Saturday, so we just bought enough for the week. One of the most difficult things to estimate when we are traveling is how much fresh food we need to buy, as we never know what will be available at the next stop. When we were in Corpus Christi we bought a golf cart type carrier with bags to use while shopping, but haven’t had much chance to use it yet. We only used the bags today, as we rode our bikes to the market. Our baskets were sufficient to carry our purchases.
One vender had some very interesting jewelry which I plan on going back to see again. The artist had chards of pottery from the streets of Charleston which he used to make into necklaces and earrings set in sterling silver. If I get any souvenir of our time in Charleston, one of his necklaces will probably be it.
We have found the people who are native to Charleston are very friendly and most anxious to share stories about their city. Today, a vendor at a shop selling dog leashes and other items made from knotted rope, started telling us about the history we were seeing around us. He is also a tour guide when he’s not selling his wares. The church in the photo above had a long story about being rebuilt after the steeple was hit by lightning. When we remarked that there aren’t many tall buildings in Charleston, he said that they follow the same “rules” as cities in the northeast where there were early settlers. Nothing could be built higher than the church steeples. Next to the Farmers Market, he pointed out a building which was the original Citadel. It is now a hotel, but there are still small holes lining the upper levels where once guns were pointed at enemies.
