DENVER POST
Sunday, July 9, 1989
Downtown Farmer's Market opens for '89
Author: Jay Grelen
Carl Palizzi 's famous yellow- and-white, ``peaches and cream'' corn will be available again this year at the Downtown Farmer's Market, which opened for the 1989 season yesterday.
But it will be Palizzi 's daughter, Debora M. Palizzi , who will be raising it on the family's 85 acres in Brighton this year.
Palizzi , who had the crops started in the greenhouses and the ground prepared for planting, was killed in March by the errant bullet of a man who was target shooting.
``It was hard coming back because a lot of people didn't know,'' said Palizzi 's mother, Margaret, 70, who was one of three women, including Palizzi 's sister Gloria, manning the family's stand yesterday at the market on Market Street.
The Downtown Farmer's Market will run from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays through Oct. 28. The other days and locations for the market, which will open at 11 a.m. and remain open until sold out, are: Tuesdays at 3400 S. Acoma St., Englewood; Wednesdays, 5066 S. Wadsworth Blvd., Marston Park Plaza in Jefferson County; Thursdays, West 38th Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard, Wheat Ridge.
Yesterday's opening day crowd was typical of the shoppers who keep the vegetable vendors busy into the fall.
``The prices are a little higher, but it's fresher,'' said Bettye Soles, who was there with her sister, Louise Fahrney. ``Sometimes we load ourselves down.''
Howard Lidman was pushing a half-filled cart for his wife, Ulla.
``It's not any less expensive than the stores, but it's just such a wonderful fellowship,'' said Ulla Lidman, who shops the market often. ``I like to support the whole idea.''
Lidman was one of the last customers to buy a bag of early potatoes from Beei Kawakami, who was sold out by 9:30 a.m.
``I just didn't bring enough,'' said Kawakami of Fort Lupton.
Selling at the markets provides ``good egg money,'' she said. ``It's worth it. I enjoy it. I meet the same people every time I come.''
Carlos Galicia, president of the farmer's market, and his wife, Ernestine, specialize in green beans on their 130-acre farm in Henderson. This summer's heat is threatening to become a problem, he said.
``We're irrigating 24 hours a day,'' he said. ``It's costly to run the pumps all the time.''
Agnes Domenico, who farms with her husband Ray on the Platte River, said she sells at the market ``as much for fun as for the dollar value. It's the friendliness and the cash money.''
While most of the farmers were selling their own produce, Bill Flother wasn't. Flother, who with his wife is owner of Robertson Farm in Palisade, said they lost their entire peach and cherry crop to the cold this year.
So the couple has secured a buyer in Washington state who is shipping fruit to them for resale in Colorado. But even traveling the 1,000-plus miles, the fruit goes from tree to customer in about three to four days, said Flother.
And he is optimistic about 1990.
``Hopefully,'' he said, ``it'll give the trees a chance to rest, and we'll have jumbo fruit next year.''
But it will be Palizzi 's daughter, Debora M. Palizzi , who will be raising it on the family's 85 acres in Brighton this year.
Palizzi , who had the crops started in the greenhouses and the ground prepared for planting, was killed in March by the errant bullet of a man who was target shooting.
``It was hard coming back because a lot of people didn't know,'' said Palizzi 's mother, Margaret, 70, who was one of three women, including Palizzi 's sister Gloria, manning the family's stand yesterday at the market on Market Street.
The Downtown Farmer's Market will run from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays through Oct. 28. The other days and locations for the market, which will open at 11 a.m. and remain open until sold out, are: Tuesdays at 3400 S. Acoma St., Englewood; Wednesdays, 5066 S. Wadsworth Blvd., Marston Park Plaza in Jefferson County; Thursdays, West 38th Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard, Wheat Ridge.
Yesterday's opening day crowd was typical of the shoppers who keep the vegetable vendors busy into the fall.
``The prices are a little higher, but it's fresher,'' said Bettye Soles, who was there with her sister, Louise Fahrney. ``Sometimes we load ourselves down.''
Howard Lidman was pushing a half-filled cart for his wife, Ulla.
``It's not any less expensive than the stores, but it's just such a wonderful fellowship,'' said Ulla Lidman, who shops the market often. ``I like to support the whole idea.''
Lidman was one of the last customers to buy a bag of early potatoes from Beei Kawakami, who was sold out by 9:30 a.m.
``I just didn't bring enough,'' said Kawakami of Fort Lupton.
Selling at the markets provides ``good egg money,'' she said. ``It's worth it. I enjoy it. I meet the same people every time I come.''
Carlos Galicia, president of the farmer's market, and his wife, Ernestine, specialize in green beans on their 130-acre farm in Henderson. This summer's heat is threatening to become a problem, he said.
``We're irrigating 24 hours a day,'' he said. ``It's costly to run the pumps all the time.''
Agnes Domenico, who farms with her husband Ray on the Platte River, said she sells at the market ``as much for fun as for the dollar value. It's the friendliness and the cash money.''
While most of the farmers were selling their own produce, Bill Flother wasn't. Flother, who with his wife is owner of Robertson Farm in Palisade, said they lost their entire peach and cherry crop to the cold this year.
So the couple has secured a buyer in Washington state who is shipping fruit to them for resale in Colorado. But even traveling the 1,000-plus miles, the fruit goes from tree to customer in about three to four days, said Flother.
And he is optimistic about 1990.
``Hopefully,'' he said, ``it'll give the trees a chance to rest, and we'll have jumbo fruit next year.''
