Grab your tote bags and clear your produce drawers.
Farmers market season is officially here.
Tuesday marks the start of Naperville’s newest bazaar for vittles and bites: the Naper Settlement Farmers Market.
From June 25 through Sept. 17, the first-time market will run from 3 to 7 p.m. every Tuesday at the museum’s 523 S. Webster St. campus.
Days out from their debut, Settlement CEO/President Rena Tamayo-Calabrese said Friday that they’re ready to go. “We are very excited,” she said.
More than 32 vendors are slated to fill out the sellers lineup. They will offer not only produce and other food items, like baked goods, jams and jellies, spices and sauces, coffee and tea, but handcrafted goods, pet food, cosmetics, soaps and even house plants. There will be two food trucks, one for pizza and the other selling bubble tea.
On June 25, Aug. 6 and Sept. 3, the Weed Ladies of the Naperville Heritage Society will set up shop in the Daniels House to sell their handmade dried floral arrangements.
Beyond booths, the market also will have live music. Acts are primarily local country and bluegrass artists, Tamayo-Calabrese said. Some names to look out for are Chicago-based duo The Sullivan Sisters, bluegrass band Wheels North and Naperville native John Till.
Rounding out the weekly event will be classes and demonstrations held at the Settlement’s Mary and Richard Benck Family Agriculture Center. Classes will cover such topics as attracting pollinators to your garden, raising backyard chickens and the past, present and future of victory gardens.
A full list of classes can be found at napersettlement.org/FarmersMarket.
The Settlement’s market has been a long time coming, Tamayo-Calabrese said.
“Although the public is seeing it come out this year, we have been looking and researching and analyzing and figuring it out — essentially … on-ramp(ing), if you will — the farmers market for probably three years now,” she said.
In addition to the new weekly market, Naperville is also host to the long-standing Naperville Farmers Market, which opened for its 36th season on June 1.
Through October, it’s open from 7 a.m. to noon every Saturday morning at 200 E. 5th Avenue. It has more than 50 vendors selling a wide array of edible and handmade goods, all of which can be found at www.napervillefarmersmarket.com.
