Events
The market is more than shopping! Enjoy weekly activities like the childrens' area and facepainting as well as special event like the ones listed below:
Event Calendar for 2013 Vancouver Farmers Markets
Garden Festival - May 25 - Trout Lake Farmers Market -celebrate the growing season with demos and displays about composting, heirloom seeds, planning your garden and even info on community gardens in your area.
Bike Festival - June 16 - Kitsilano Farmers Market - don a helmet and dust off the bike shorts! Bike to the market on Bike to Market day and you'll receive our thanks by way of coupons and special treats for cyclists.
Farmers Market Kitchen - Trout Lake Farmers Market - this year, we continue our tremendously popular market cooking demo series; bringing chefs to the market to work with fresh local producers from our farmers. Each chef in this 5 installment series prepares a dish inspired by the season and featuring the freshest market ingredients. Last year's lineup of chefs included: Karen Barnaby, Ned Bell, Andrea Carlson, Angus An and Quang Dang. More information about the 2012 season available on the Farmers Market Kitchen page. Dates and chefs for the 2013 season to be announced!
Berry Festival - July 17 - Main Street Station Farmers Market - berry pie competition, recipes, tips on preserving and cooking with the bounty of local berries and fun for the kids.
Picnic in the Park - August 11 - Kitsilano - Join us as we partner with the Kitsilano Community Centre on a good old-fashioned family picnic and carnival. Rides, food, games, music and a pretty great farmers market too!
Corn Festival - August 17 - Kerrisdale Farmers - enjoy fresh corn, freshly-popped kettle corn recipes and corny kids activities too!
Tomato Festival - September 14 - Trout Lake & September 15 - Kitsilano - celebrate the "Love Apple" with tastings, beautiful and informative displays and recipes to make with those delectable heirlooms you just found at the market. This year we'll have two festivals for twice the tomatoey goodness!
Cookbook Swaps - Trout Lake - June 15 & 22, July 13 & 20, Oct 12 & 19 - This year we have more swaps due to popular demand! Swap your rarely used books for something new to you.
Harvest Festival - October 19 - West End - everything squash and apples and pears! Recipes, information, cooking tips and demonstrations. Enter your pie in our BC Fall Fruit Pie Competition (2012 info)
Fun with Food - Celebrate and learn about local food at our "Fun with Food" station at upcoming farmers markets. Our Food Literacy Educators will get you involved in a bunch of activities suitable for kids (and adults) of all ages.
Tasting Graphs: Compare two different tastes at the market - so far we've tried local vs. supermarket honey and different kinds of jams. Look out for heirloom tomato tasting at our Trout Lake and Kitsilano Tomato Festivals!
Harvest Blanket: Try to guess what local fruit or veggie is hiding under the harvest blanket using only your sense of touch (is it smooth, bumpy, soft, round?)
Market Bingo: Explore the market with your family and find each item to get a bingo! Turn in your card to get a prize at the "Fun with Food" station.
Local Food Word Finds: we update these every month to include words centered around what is available at the farmers market
Joke of the Month: Got a favourite? Send them in to laura@eatlocal.org and it might just make the list.
Colouring Sheets: We've got lots of crayons and colouring sheets to match the season. Get your colour on!
Find these seasonal activities at our seasonal festivals:
Dig In! Garden Festival - Trout Lake, May 25: We eat seeds! Match the seed with the food we eat
Bike Festival - Kitsilano, June 16: Foodprints: Rank 5 modes of transportation from the most pollution to the least
Berry Festival - Main Street Station, July 17: Sugary Drinks: Match sugar cubes with common berry smoothies for their sugar content
Corn Festival - Kerrisdale, August 17:
Corn Is Everywhere: What everyday products have corn inside them?
Tomato Festival - Trout Lake, September 14; Kitsilano, September 15:
Predicting the inside: how many seeds do you think are inside a tomato?
Harvest Festival - West End, October 19:
Plant part twister: Put your foot down on 4 different plant parts - leaves, seeds, roots & fruits
Want to be a Food Literacy Educator? Volunteers run activities on at least two market days and engage children and market shoppers in interactive activities that increase their understanding of seasonal food and market availability. Training is provided. Contact volunteer@eatlocal.org with some of your background and for more details.
Buskers
Interested in sharing your musical talents with the market community? We book buskers at each of our markets each week all year long. All music should be acoustic and appropriate for an all ages event. Bookings must be done in advance through the market office. Fill out the application below and email, mail or drop it off to any market or our office.
2013 Busker Application - PDF - 
DOC - 
Community Information Tables
As a commitment to our community, we aim to involve community-based organizations in our Markets. Under normal circumstances, we charge up to $60 a day for space at the Markets but for community groups we are offering space at a lower rate - just $20 a day plus an annual application processing fee of $25. We set aside one space each week at each of our 6 markets for community education.
There are limits to what you may sell. The only permitted items are:
society memberships
general donations
raffle tickets
event tickets
You may not sell T-shirts, coffee mugs, buttons, badges, plants, seeds, food items, or other items not listed above at this free table. Additionally, to sustain the economic efforts of our vendors, free food, beverages and hand-crafted items may not be offered at this space. If you want to sell or distribute something that is not on this list please contact Robyn for more information.
2013 Community Table Application
PDF - 
DOC -
If you would like to be notified when the applications go online, contact us at communitytables@eatlocal.org to be put on our mailing list.
