How prevalent are farmer's markets or organic food markets? (San Diego: home, neighborhoods)

[Machino]

It varies from city to city, and many have little to none in the way of farmer's markets or organic food markets. Is San Diego a place to find these necessities? Which neighborhoods have them and anything close to Downtown and/or the Trolley lines?

[sidrah]

Excellent Farmers Market in Hillcrest @ DMV parking lot.

[Oerdin]

Farmers Markets in San Diego - Find locally grown produce: San Diego County Farm Bureau

The short answer is they're every where.

[somnang]

There's a Jimbo's (all natural Grocer) up here in Rancho Bernardo. It's actually down the street from where I work. There are a few others scattered in the county as well: San Diegos Premier Natural Foods Grocer - Store Locator

There's also Whole Foods, there's one in La Jolla and Hillcrest:
Our Stores | WholeFoodsMarket.com (http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/california-south/index.php - broken link)

[Oerdin]

I normally don't go down to the farmers markets just for time reasons (though I might go to Little Italy today just because I have a hankering for fresh oysters and uni in the shell) so I signed up for the farmer's market bag at Specialty Produce:

Specialty Produce is San Diego's Best Wholesale Distributor

They pick up the best of the local farmer's markets, put them into a bag, and then sell them to you for a very reasonable price. For a small price you can add on fresh bread from the top ranked bakery in town, cheeses from Taste Artisan Cheese in Hillcrest, and even meat or fish from local producers. You can basically get one bag of everything fresh, local, organic, and seasonal and be done with most of your shopping for the week. I'm really partial to their fish because it comes directly from local fisherman here in San Diego County and you get a nice cross section of what ever is fresh, in season, and what they're catching right now.

[skeke]

That is one thing I miss from Sacramento. Since Sacto is a major agricutural area, farmer's markets were everywhere. Those of us who worked downtown would walk over to Cesar Chavez Park on Wednesdays and stock up on wonderful fresh produce while listening to live music in the beauty of the small downtown park. There were tons of farmer's markets. Though they have them in San Diego, I have yet to find a convenient one for me. I tried to go to the HIllcrest one one Sunday. I think I should have gotten up very very early and maybe gotten there before it opened and had breakfast some where. I drove round and round in circles with no luck finding parking and went home without going to the market. Hillcrest is always a pain to park in but that was an impossible task. I got spoiled in Sacramento where they were just everywhere with many within walking distance of offices during the weekday.

[tstieber]

There are a heck of a lot of farmers' markets though. North Park, Mission Valley, Downtown, Hillcrest, Encinitas, Del Mar, Rancho Santa fe, the list goes on and on.

[Oerdin]

There are 49 certified farmer's markets in the county so if someone says there are none close or convenient to them then they either haven't looked or have a very odd definition of convenient. I liked to them above so I'm guess he didn't click the link.

[skeke]

Somehow I managed to both my replay to no close or convenient farmer's markets. I am spoiled by Sacramento where you could walk out of your office, buy fruits and veggies and take them home with you that night. The nearest farmer's market to my office (Mission Valley) was reported by one of my staff as being full of trinkets and almost no fruits/veggies. The nearest to my home (south of SDSU) would be City Heights I guess. Haven't driven there on a Saturday to see what it is like or what parking is like. When you are spoiled by the amazing plethora of weekday farmer's markets right outside your office door such as we had in Sacramento, you find driving to them on weekends or evenings and dealing with possible parking messes (like the Sunday one in Hillcrest) to be inconvenient. I went to one in Liberty Station one Sunday and found one fruit/veggie both (with nothing tempting) and people selling trinkets and ready to eat food. Not my idea of a farmer's market which should have table after table of fruits, nuts and veggies.

[NYSD1995]

There are many farmer's markets around San Diego but (with the exception of Hillcrest and Ocean Beach) many are a little bit too light on the farmers and heavy on the trinkets as Skeke said. You can certainly get what you need for fruits and veggies at them, but I agree that many are not worth a special trip. We recently went to both Liberty Station's and Normal Heights' farmers market and were decidedly underwhelmed. There is definitely more of a focus on selling coffee and prepared food, which I think makes sense given the clientele.

There are places like Henry's, Windmill Farms, North Park Produce and Specialty Produce that have the same / better stuff and are a lot more convenient. Another very nice option is to buy a CSA share or split one with a friend.