The Farmer’s Market at Wychwood Barns

A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of spending a Saturday morning perusing the local offerings at a small Farmers Market at the historic Wychwood streetcar repair barns located in Toronto’s St. Clair and Christie neighborhood. Just over a year ago, this former streetcar barn was converted into the Artscape Wychwood Barns – a 60,000 sq. ft. multifaceted community center where arts and culture, environmental leadership, heritage preservation, urban agriculture and affordable housing are brought together to foster a strong sense of community.

In addition to hosting a weekend farmers market stocked with organic and locally grown food, Wychwood Barns is itself a green dream by being the first designated heritage site in Canada to seek LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) Canada certification. Some of Artscape Wychwood Barns’ LEED features include a geo-thermal heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system with ground source heat pumps; a storm water harvesting and reuse system; energy efficient lighting and appliances and water-conserving plumbing fixtures.

Strolling through Wychwood Barns with steaming cups of locally roasted coffee and Aztec hot cocoa, we took in all the sights, smells, tastes and stories this colorful group of vendors, growers and artisans had to offer. While stopping to smell the rose-scented honey, we spoke to a local bee keeper who explained how he lovingly tends to his millions of bees. The fungi guy we met served up piping hot bowls of made to order Miso soup as he snipped brown beach and oyster mushrooms into a simmering pot of broth before our eyes. We chatted up the man selling wheat-free, gluten-free, sugar-free muffins and bread made from sweet potatoes (delicious!), and found ourselves thoroughly entranced by the artisanal cheese man, who sliced off generous pieces of his wares for us to try. The pickle man finally convinced us that turnips, not green beans, were the pickles for us, so we added a big jar of Barbie-pink turnips to our market bag.

Picking our way through tables and tables of gorgeous fruits and vegetables, we had a hard time deciding exactly what to buy. In the end, we purchased a bouquet of multi-colored carrots, fresh salad mix with edible flowers, teeny tiny little Easter egg radishes and a head of purple cabbage. When we arrived home we whipped out the cutting boards and got to work slicing and dicing our bounty, heaping it onto plates, creating a gorgeous, jam-packed salad for lunch. We’d worked up quite an appetite during our Wychwood barns excursion (despite all of our taste-testing), so we added seaweed flakes, dried cranberries, sun-dried tomatoes and an avocado we had ripening on the sill to complete the mélange.

After topping the heap with some homemade Dijon vinaigrette, we dug into our scrumptious meal and didn’t stop until our plates had been picked clean. The only thing better than shopping for and eating locally grown organic food is getting to do it with your friends.

For more information on Artscape Wychwood Barns, check out the website