Do you have a local farmers market? And do you use it?

[Blinglovin]

DP and I are becoming increasingly addicted to our local farmers market. It's a five minute walk from our house and is just brilliant. We buy a big pile of veggies for about £6, the best bacon in the world, eggs, flowers (which cost nothing practically and last forever) etc. We also have started buying extra meat because it is SO much better than the supermarket. The lamb chops we had on the weekend... .

What about the rest of you?

yes we do. Its every 2 weeks and 5 mins away which is handy. All our meat comes from there and gets frozen. Eggs all come from there and so does a lot of cheese.

Not necessarily cheap - some things are great value some aren't. There is a stall selling home cooked chilled ready meals - £8 for some meat balls in tomato sauce? I think not.

There is however a lady that sells chocolate which is, I think, the nicest choc I have ever had. And I have had a lot. She also does choc dipped honeycomb which is dreeeeaaaaamy.

Our market's cheese is disappointing. For me anyway. But I think we'll be buying more meat and freezing like you.

Chocolate dipped honeycombe? My word - can you send her to us? SW London....

We do and it is, frankly, a rip-off.
We spent £3.60 a couple of weeks ago on two leeks, about 5 parsnips, and a swede .

Bagels cost £1.00 each (admittedly delicious ones).

We bought a lump of Isle of Mull cheddar for £5.60 which was dry and flavourless.

And they sell fish that says 'Greece' on the country of origin - not in the spirit of a FM if you ask me, and as we're in the W of Scotland, it's not as if they couldn't get locally sourced fish.

The only good things are eggs, which are cheaper and better than supermarket organic ones.

The local cheese is local - made a few miles away and they do lots of tasting so DS usually have a few tries - its not cheap but very nice. Veg - can be more than supermarket but its much fresher, more varieties - multi coloured carrots and stuff. We also buy from local allotment owners that sell off excess - flowers 50p a bunch - so pick them up weekly - DW happy

We did (cycle ride away) until some git stole DH's bike. Veg, meat and fish reasonable value, but somehow always managed to end up spending what we saved on interesting other stuff.

kind of. but it is INSANELY expensive. We just go to flounce around and have a coffee let dd1 eat the tasters and so on.

And sleb spot too.

We have a monthly farmer's market that we sometimes have a walk through en route to buy the Sunday paper. It's insanely expensive.

I like farmers markets and where i live (Dorset) there are loads of them and alot of lovely local food which is way to expencive for my pocket, i go to the farm shop once a month for a few treats .

Yes, there is one near us but it's so expensive we very rarely go.

The St Albans is lovely and very expensive. The last time I went I bought the most ridiculous things cos they were beautiful - like a proper ostrich feather long-handled duster for £12 It's gorgeous and really good at cobwebs.

OOooh Lauriefairycake that sounds cheap especially for St Albans.

I think that ours, while not cheap, is not eye wateringly expensive either, which makes it very appealing. We spent £21 last week and got 4 good sized chops (three would have fed the two of us, but greedy pigs that we are, we ate all four!), a packet of bacon, 6 eggs, 6 large carrots, a cauliflower, some shallots, 3 huge baby marrows, a bunch of leeks, a small butternut and a loaf of rye bread (the bread was obscene ... £4).

Normally we spend a few quid on flowers too - but we had some from my birthday the week before so didn't this week.

You are right, that item was cheap, I appear to have blocked out the £5 elephant garlic and the paste for curry which was £12 I think

We also go to the ones in St Albans Harpenden (pretty much the same stalls at both, but they're on different dates). We buy lots of beef for the freezer, cheese, eggs, veg that tastes of something, game in season (much cheaper than supemarket), and plants.

Local town has one too but it isn't very good (tat rather than food).

Most things are rather expensive atr ours but we always buy some seafood as the guy comes in from the coast with a van full of lovely stuff.

Last week we got a bag of scallops (12, I think) and we were hoping to put the dc off them but they had to have some too .

Dh got venison sausages too but I wasn't keen on them.

Our has some nice cheeses. We buy goats cheese usually.

Oh, and lots of olives, though I doubt very much that they are locally sourced!

our one is ridiculously expensive. Think little change from £5 for a loaf of bread type expensive.

And some of the veg will be rotted and they will still expect you to pay more than double greengrocer prices.

It is also very small.

Yet apparently it is award wining

I would love a good reasonable local market that I could get to.

I loved the markets in france
I wish we could have something like that.

we have one held about once a month. the food is fantastic but again, quite expensive.
but then it just goes to show what a bad deal farmers must get from supermarkets who force the prices down.