It was a beautiful clear morning here in the valley. Being encouraged by the fantastic weather, we headed out to breakfast and continued on to downtown Roanoke. I took Glenda by our new office and then we walked down to the Farmers' Market and enjoyed all the plants, flowers, pottery, and vegetables.
The colors were just amazing. It's probably my favorite time of the year at the market except for when the summer vegetables are in the stalls. The number of bedding plants that leave the market each day during this time of the year is impressive.
It's the mixture of things that makes the market so interesting. The entertainmen value is much higher than a mall. People are relaxed and friendly. Very few people are in a rush, and we almost always run into someone we know.
Glenda loves to browse through the beautiful plants that come from Walter's Greenhouse. Their display takes up a whole corner of the market, and they always have unique flowers.
We have very little land left for planting annuals unless we plow up the front yard or start planting down in the ravine behind the house so mostly we just look.
Roanoke really has a wonderful thing going with the market. It's one of my favorite parts of living in the valley. So many places have a market one day a week, but we have one all the time, and it changes from day to day.
You can the malls as far as I'm concerned, I would rather wander around the booths on the Farmers Market than through a bunch of chain stores which are the same no matter where you are.
I bet you could go to malls all your life and never see an Azalea as pretty as the one on the right that I saw in plants from Walter's Greenhouse. It was a great day at the market. You can check out more pictures at the Roanoke Market Album. The morning sunrise was definitely a sign of a nice day.
