One of the country’s top farmers markets returns to Alabama this spring

The Market at Pepper Place is returning for its 16th year to Birmingham Saturday with a spring version that its founder said rivals the size of summer markets in previous years.

What once was confined to the parking lot of Pepper Place now takes place in the Pepper Place Market District in Lakeview, between Second and Third avenues South and 28th and 29th streets. The state’s largest weekly farmer’s market will be held every Saturday from 7 a.m. until noon until December.

“It’s bigger than it’s ever been,” the market’s founder, Cathy Sloss Jones, said. “We’ve got more than 100 tents for the spring market. It used to take the summer market to get that many farmers and artisans.”

Jones credited Birmingham chefs Frank Stitt, Chris Hastings and others who have emphasized the need for farmers to grow a variety of seasonal crops to enable restaurants to rely on local produce beyond the typical Alabama growing seasons.

As the Pepper Place vendors are approaching closer to year-round production, Jones said the Market at Pepper Place is anticipating becoming a year-round event as soon as 2017.

“I’ve been wanting to see it become year-round for some time now and it looks like we’re approaching a day when we will be able to make that a reality,” Jones said.

For now, the focus is on Saturday’s seasonal return, which will feature live music from Fiddlin’ in the Parlor and Debbie Bond and Radiator Rick.

Long-time market participants including Calvert Farms, Crocker Farm, Hepzibah Farm, Penton Farm, Snow’s Bend Farm and Southern Foothills return this weekend with the latest seasonal produce.

“We’ve got the older farmers that are returning and we couldn’t be happier about that,” Jones said. “But we’ve also got several new, young farmers who will be part of the market this year and that’s exciting.”

For those looking for something less, um, raw to eat, vendors will be selling breakfast burritos, doughnuts, sausage biscuits, scones and muffins. New this year is a spring brunch in Hastings’ latest restaurant, OvenBird, which will open at 9 a.m.

Prepared foods from artisan breads to zucchini relish will be sold and a host of non-food items ranging from jewelry and clothing to wood and metal art and a host of Alabama goods.

While such “Alabama makers” have always been a part of the Market at Pepper Place, Jones said that relationship will become more formal this summer when Pepper Place adds the Makers Village to the event. The new section is meant to coincide with the Alabama Department of Tourism’s “Year of the Alabama Maker” theme this year.