Ellensburg Farmers Market

Ellensburg Farmers Market: Vendors share their artistic and culinary creations

Story by Meisner Dunlap | photos by Laura Allen and Zelby Gloria | design by Taylor Downard

The second weekend of the Ellensburg Farmers Market, May 9, 2026.

The smell of fresh produce flows across 4th Avenue under the warm sun. The smell of food travels through the air, following the paths of people meandering from vendor to vendor. The sound of various instruments and buskers' voices around the corner gives the street a warm, welcoming atmosphere that draws people in. 

Welcome to a typical Saturday at the Ellensburg Farmers’ Market.

Formerly known as the Kittitas County Farmers’ Market, this bustling market is rich in tradition and known for its fresh produce from local farms, baked goods and handcrafted products. It contains a total of over 90 local Washington vendors.

Each year, the Ellensburg Farmers’ Market opens during the first weekend of May and closes during the last weekend of October. During that period, the market is available to the public every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The following guide will highlight the details of the Ellensburg Farmers’ Market, mostly from the perspectives of various vendors.

Lennon Layne Co., owned and operated by Stephanie Mae, sells handcrafted fiber art.

Market experience

Farmers who work at the market grow and sell all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables you wouldn’t find at any grocery store.

For instance, Hazel Gray Farms and Fernandez are the two Certified Organic vendors at the Ellensburg Farmers’ Market, meaning that they sell exclusively organic vegetables. Hazel Gray Farms’ delicata squash is small and easy to carry. Unlike with pumpkins, you can eat the skin of the delicata squash.

Ahtanum Berry Patch has various types of raspberries and strawberries that taste fresher than those found in the store. In addition, Wild Craft makes huckleberry jam made from fresh huckleberries. Those berries feel firm and look ripe, with their characteristic bright red colors.

Vang Xiong and daughter Nou Xiong operate the Vang’s Garden stall, selling floral arrangements.

Some of the most popular booths at the Farmers’ Market are the ones that sell flowers. The Flower Frog creates handmade bouquets that you can give to someone special. Vang Garden, which is especially popular among Ellensburgians, is another vendor that does the same.

Farm products make up about half of the items sold at this lively market. The other half of the vendors includes processed foods, hot foods, artisans and charities.

Take a look at the hot food and artisan vendors that Pulse interviewed to get a feel of the artsy aspect of the Farmers’ Market, but keep in mind that they are not the only people at the market who sell these types of products. Also, remember that this diverse market would not be called a “farmers’ market” without the wide variety of produce mentioned above.

Affordable jewelry

Jennifer Epps and Judy Coder, co-owners of Notable Exceptions.

Jennifer Epps and Judy Coder are the co-owners for Notable Exceptions. “We’re doing things that are bright and shiny and fun, but they’re not made out of actual silver and actual gold,” Epps says. “Students who don’t have a lot of money can still afford the stuff that we have. We’re not high-end jewelers or things like that.”

Epps and Coder have each established their own preferred style of jewelry making. “I open them up with pliers and weave them through in different patterns,” Epps says. “[I’m] learning how to create different chainmail bracelets and things like that, bracelets and necklaces.” Epps makes her jewelry out of chainmail, which is made of small aluminum rings.

“I inherited my grandfather’s lapidary shop. He used to cut and polish stones. When we started messing around with jewelry, I was just hoping that I could wrap some of the stones that he had polished so I could give them to my mom and my sisters,” Coder says. “And I kind of got hooked and now we take trips to Arizona in the wintertime and buy more stones and I wrap them in either copper wire or stainless steel.”

Epps says that she can make the same patterns many times, but change the colors and sizes of each bracelet and necklace so each can look different in at least one way. Similarly, Coder wraps each of her stones slightly differently.

Notable Exceptions frequently sees a long line of people at their booth, eagerly but patiently waiting to talk to them about geology. Epps and Coder identify themselves as “Nick Zentner geeks,” referring to the well-known geology professor at CWU. During the coronavirus pandemic, he began sharing lectures from his backyard, discussing the geology of Washington. “His fan base has literally grown to cover the globe,” Coder says.

However, since Coder and Epps stick to using inexpensive materials for their products, they always tell their customers to save their questions about Ellensburg blue agates for Goldsmith Willie Toth from the Gypsy Wagon Jewelry Company, one of several other vendors that sell handmade jewelry at the Market.

Goldsmith Willie Toth and Glass Artist Sunna Kraushaar, co-owners of the Gypsy Wagon Jewelry.

Ellensburg blue agates

Toth has been a goldsmith for 50 years. When he and his wife, Glass Artist Sunna Kraushaar, who shares the Gypsy Wagon Jewelry Company booth with him, first moved to Ellensburg five years ago, locals began telling him about the Ellensburg Blues Community. These conversations inspired him to start creating jewelry for Ellensburg Blues. The company named itself after the Ellensburg blue agate, which you can only find in Ellensburg.

“We’re pretty well-known in this area for what we do,” Toth says. “One thing is that nobody doing this market has the experience I do, basically two or three years, maybe a little bit more, building jewelry. Probably their experience is primarily silver, whereas I’m coming from traditional jewelry, setting diamonds, building those types of mountings. Then, I’m taking those skills and bringing them over to Ellensburg Blue.”

Toth and Kraushaar have a unique story regarding how they first came across the Ellensburg blue agates. “When we moved here, Willie, as he said, was working for Fred Meyer,” Krushaar says. “But now he gets to really be creative.”

Old-time and Celtic music

The art aspects of the Farmers’ Market expand to much more than just jewelry. For instance, several musicians, such as Steppe Sisters, regularly visit the Farmers’ Market just to share their songs.

“[The Market is] such a positive experience for people in Kittitas County and we want to add to that. That’s certainly why I want to do it,” says Sue Hammond, the guitarist and percussionist for Steppe Sisters. “We get to see a lot of people we know. We’ve both been in this community a long time and so we get to see our friends and neighbors.”

“People are there to be part of the community. They’ve been there to buy from local vendors and they’re usually in a pretty good mood,” says Candace Hooper, the violinist and mandolinist of Steppe Sisters. It’s in the summer, so it’s usually pretty good weather. It’s a perfect time to bring some music to people.”

The Steppe Sisters play two types of music: old-time and Celtic. “There are a bunch of people who got together to play jam sessions once a month at the Iron Horse Brewery Pub and that was once a month on the last Sunday of the month and a fairly sizable number of people will come to that,” Hooper says. The Steppe Sisters formed out of those jams, which all five band members regularly attended.

But the Steppe Sisters are not the only performers who share their talents on the street corners of the Farmers’ Market. These performers do not busk for the money; they do so just to have fun and give their audience joy.

Although the art scene that covers 4th Avenue between Pearl Street and Pine Street on warm Saturday mornings captures the overall culture of Ellensburg, the event cannot be called a farmers’ market without the food.

Laura Valle and Valerio & Jocelyn Vargas, owners and operators of VVs Cocina.

A family-owned Mexican eatery

One popular food vendor at the Ellensburg Farmers’ Market is VVs Cocina, owned by Laura Valle. Valle runs the business with her husband, Valerio Vargas, and their 16-year-old daughter, Jocelyn Vargas. Their business name, VVs Cocina, means Valle and Vargas’ kitchen. VVs Cocina lives up to its name because “we treat everyone as they are part of our families,” Valle says. 

“We’re very family-oriented and so we really wanted our name to be inspired by how much we enjoy our family time and being in the Farmers’ Market,” Jocelyn Vargas says. “I love the family time that we spend together.” She adds that “when we also make our recipes and the food, we also have those recipes from passed-down ancestors and so I think that can remind us a lot about our family and the time that we’re spending together and having them in our thoughts.”

They say their most popular dishes are esquites and loaded potatoes. The Valle-Vargas family makes their esquitos out of corn in a bowl with optional hot Cheetos. Their tres leches, which Jocelyn Vargas says is her family’s special dessert, is also quite popular among customers. We make it all fresh and like a homemade recipe, especially for the salsas and how we marinate the meat,” Valle says. “[We’re] bringing some Mexican food to this community.”

The Valle-Vargas family is only one of several Farmers’ Market booths that sell hot food related to their culture. Another cultural hot food option is Bangkok omg Thai, which the Farmers’ Market is just adding for the first time this spring. But those are not the only two booths where you can find breakfast or lunch.

Ryan Steele and Alana Jacobs, Assistant Marketing Manager and Marketing Manager of the Ellensburg Farmers Market.

Mushrooms like no others

When it comes to fresh produce, Alana Jacobs, the marketing manager of the Ellensburg Farmers’ Market, recommends the mushrooms. One of the two vendors selling them “specializes in morel mushrooms, which are super seasonal and kind of difficult to find, but he also has some of the best,” Jacobs says.

The other mushroom vendor creates mushroom powders. “They do packaged whole mushrooms and have a lot of different varieties in mushroom seasoning. They have all this different kind of stuff,” Jacobs says.

Jacobs says she loves her mushroom vendors because “they’re all very beautiful and you’ll be able to pick out your own mushrooms right at the market and take them home. And you’re not going to get anything like that at the grocery store.”

But mushrooms are only one of many different kinds of produce that the Farmers’ Market sells.

Excitement kicks in

Although these vendors exemplify the unique possibilities you might experience at the Ellensburg Farmers’ Market, they are just a few of the many options out there. As the event’s marketing manager, Jacobs says she feels excited about this year’s farmers’ market season because she predicts that the weather will be sunny and pleasant during the late spring and summer. 

“Usually, the first day of the market, it rains. That’s typically in my years I’ve been here. This is my third year. That’s usually what happens,” Jacobs says. “If the weather is mild like it was last year, it’s gonna be a very easy season. And I’m very excited to be out on Saturday and to engage with the community like I do and that’s my favorite part of the job.”

The Notable Exceptions’ owners also share their excitement to start working for the market again. “I cannot wait. I am very excited,” Epps says. “It’d be fun to see all the people again and watch as the parade of people goes past our booth. It’s very fun to know that we’re in town and everything’s happening.”

What aspect of the Ellensburg Farmers Market are you most looking forward to this spring?