Grand Prairie Farmers Market was supposed to be in a new building by now, but plans for Market Square have been delayed to a 2009 opening date.

REX C. CURRY/Special Contributor

Forestburg farmer Tony Vann is a regular seller at the Grand Prairie Farmers Market.

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Still, the farmers market is in a better location this year than last. Instead of being in a parking lot, it's at City Hall Plaza on a lawn near a replica of the Liberty Bell.

"This spot sure beats where they were last year," said Marion Dunn, a Grand Prairie resident who has shopped the market for five or six years. "This is shady. They were on blacktop."

She was buying a hanging plant at one of eight blue and green canopies where farmers and other local producers were set up.

Long tables held early-season peaches and tomatoes, green beans, broccoli, cabbage, blackberries, a few strawberries, new potatoes, zucchini, eight-ball squash, pattypan and yellow squash, spring and dry onions, and green plums, which farmer Tony Vann from the Montague County town of Forestburg described as "sweet as your mother-in-law."

He and 16-year-old Amos Rodrigs, who was manning a table for his family's J&H Farm in Bowie, were the only farmers selling produce on this particular Saturday. It's early in the season, and some farmers, such as Shawn and Crystal McAnalley, were helping other farmers sell produce while waiting for their crops to mature.

"We're small," Ms. McAnalley said. The couple farms 1.5 acres of tomatoes, squash, peppers and melons on the south side of Grand Prairie. "All that stuff just won't come out till it's hot," she said.

The market also had spaces for a potter, a pecan seller, an outpost of Pat's Plants & Gift Shop, Texas souvenirs from Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie, and Peaceful Waters handcrafted bath and body products made by Grand Prairie chef Susan Faulkner.

"I have an inner chemist," says Ms. Faulkner, who weaves scents such as cucumber-zen tea and ginger essence with dried mandarin peel in goat's milk and glycerin soaps. "I do this because I enjoy it."

The farmers at Grand Prairie's market are members of North Central Texas Farmers Market Association, which means they're selling what they've grown while striving not to use pesticides. Cowtown Farmers Market in Fort Worth and Grapevine Farmers Market also are part of the network.

More farmers and produce are expected at the Grand Prairie market as the season continues.

Kim Pierce is a Dallas freelance writer.

GRAND PRAIRIE FARMERS MARKET

Where: City Hall Plaza, behind City Hall (317 College St.)

Contact: Rita Heep, 972-237-8036