Sakuma Market Stand and Fruits & Vegetables In Texas

Every once in a while I'll see something that causes me to greatly miss the fertile Skagit Valley, that being the place I called home for a lot of years. Where I live now, in north Texas, it is not much of an agricultural zone.

When I was up in the Skagit Valley, last summer, we dropped in on a farmers market that had opened since I moved. There are a lot of farmers in the Skagit Valley. Among the biggest are the Sakuma Brothers. I had a Sakuma sister in my class in high school. She whacked me regularly with her clarinet, though these days she denies this, but, I have the scars to prove it.

The farmers market we dropped in on was the Sakuma Market Stand. How is it that the Skagit Valley, with a population just a bit over 100,000 has so many fruit and vegetable stands, while this Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, I'm living in, with a population in the 6 million zone, has so few farmers market, fruit and vegetable stands type places?

I know strawberries, tomatoes, peaches and apples can grow here. There is a U-Pick strawberry field here that I know of, on Bowen Street in Arlington. Out in east Texas they grow blueberries.

The Sakuma brothers are 1 of only 2 farmers in America to grow tea leaves. At the Sakuma Market Stand, in addition to all sorts of fruits and vegetables, you can also get fresh baked pies, Sakuma jams, shortcake, berry milkshakes, made with freshly made French Vanilla Ice Cream and all sorts of other things.

On their 100s of acres the Sakuma Brothers grow raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, boysenberries, logan berries, marionberries, apples, sweet onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet corn, green beans, cauliflower, garlic, lettuce, potatoes, broccoli, squash, pumpkins and the aforementioned tea.

Click here to visit the Sakuma Market Stand and the Skagit Valley. It might give you an idea why I get a bit homesick at times.