Fresh produce is the focus of Ellenville Garden Center, in Boca Raton, that draw s 200 to 300 people to a farmer's market each Thursday evening. Photo by Jerry Lower.
By Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley
Ellenville Garden Center is becoming a community center for eastern Boca Raton.
Not only do owners Beth and Craig Peschl sell plants and landscaping services, they also host a weekly farmer’s market. On Thursday evenings, the market attracts 200 to 300 people.
“This center and its market are a new concept that really isn’t out there yet,” says Jason McCobb who is working with the Peschls.
It’s based on markets he enjoyed while visiting Napa and Sonoma, Calif. There, people would lay down blankets and watch the kids play while drinking a bottle of wine and listening to music. “The families would hang out all evening. I’d never experienced a market like that,” McCobb says.
When he returned to South Florida in 2009, he wanted to do something similar.
He met the Peschls when he was looking for land on which to grow baby greens. He set up his organic and sustainable farm on five of the 10 acres they own in Delray Beach. Then he teamed up with the couple to run the market.
“This market is really cool the way the vendors are set up to zig and zag through the plants,” says Greg Schneider who, as owner of MisGreg’s Produce, sells the fruits and veggies he grows on his farm in Stuart. He also brings his pet black pig, Maxwell, who lies in the shade of a tree. “Kids love to pet him,” he says.
Coconut Creek resident Emerson Ouellette,, 7, works the Hula Hoop
at the Ellenville Garden Center farmers market in Boca Raton.
Photo by Tim Stepien
At the market, you can also enjoy live music, eat food prepared by a local restaurant, let your kids play with hula hoops on the lawn, fill up on barbecue prepared in a drum smoker in the parking lot or sample homemade empanadas. You can cool off with wine ice cream, chill with a snow-cone or savor cupcakes and cheesecake from local bakeries while your kids have their faces painted. You can even buy treats for your pet.
“We were surprised to find this. We didn’t know it was here,” says Dan Cope of Boca Raton who is visiting the market for the first time.
His wife, Mary, heard of it when she was looking for “fun things to do” with their daughter and three grandchildren visiting from Kentucky. Those grandchildren include David, 7, who has his face painted like Spiderman and his sister, Emily, 4, who is painted as a butterfly.
The Peschls opened their garden center just north of Mizner Park two years ago. It sits on what was one of the last pieces of undeveloped property in Boca Raton.
“There wasn’t much here but dirt and weeds,” Beth says.
They spent about $1 mil-lion over a year making improvements including a large inviting lodge-like structure complete with a stone fireplace.
During market hours, it’s filled with vendors offering their wares in air-conditioned comfort.
Boca Raton resident Rylee Azarowicz, 5, feeds
Maxwell the pig spinach at the Ellenville Garden
Center. Maxwell, 1, is owned by Greg Schneider,
market vendor and owner of MisGreg’s Produce.
Photo by Tim Stepien
Outside, you’ll see a red Ford flatbed truck that the couple towed into place. Beth’s father used it on the family chicken farm in Ellenville, N.Y., and she remembers riding in it as a child.
There are other memories here, too. On a high shelf under the roof, there’s the Radio Flyer wagon, the Flexible Flyer sled and Fire Chief engine she played with as a child.
And a whole new generation of children is getting involved in agriculture at the center.
This summer, McCobb (aka Farmer Jay) is hosting his Farmer Jay’s Junior Sprout classes that teach youngsters in local summer programs how to plant and raise seeds organically and sustainably.
“I want to get the word out,” he says.
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