Today is the last day of the outdoor North Grand Farmers' Market, which runs from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. The cold weather has chased vendors from Ames Main Street Farmer's Market too. Here's a look back at the vendors we met since Patch started. First, Dick DeMoss and his wife Letha talked about how their North Grand Farmers' Market booth began as a 4-H project. Then Lucy Barton talked about her gluten-free baked goods she sold at the Ames Main Street Farmers' Market. Joe Monahan, 53, and Barbara Ohlund, 44, started selling bread and produce under the name Heavy Horses Farm after Monahan was laid …

GL Williams was the Johnny Appleseed of Runnells. He started an apple orchard 100 years ago in southeastern Polk County. Willams farmed into his 80s and planted more than 1,000 trees. He eventually brought his son Walter Leo into the family business. Williams’ grandsons, Mike and Les, run the family orchard today. GL Williams grandson, Mike Williams and his wife Deb now sell Williams & Sons’ apples every Saturday at the North Grand Farmers Market in Ames. The other son in Williams & Sons, Mike’s younger brother Les, sells apples at the Des Moines Farmers’ Market. Williams & Sons’ apples are …

Darla Best has been selling Amish baskets at the North Grand Farmers’ Market for the last six years. Her business, Gingerich Amish Baskets, offers hand-woven baskets made by seven different Amish families. The business is named after three of the Amish families all with the same last name Gingerich. Along with beautifully crafted baskets in all shapes and sizes, Best also sells loom woven rugs woven by a young Amish woman, potholders, trivets, and aprons. Any of the baskets can be custom ordered. If you want dividers, a lid, or handles, Best says the Amish families can make almost anything …

Farmer Beth Kemp sells a variety of small vegetables at the North Grand Farmers’ Market. She prides herself on growing a small number of quality items. Kemp specializes in baby salad greens like little baby mustard greens, small 3” arugula and loose leaf lettuce. “It‘s a really efficient crop,” explains Kemp of her favorite greens. “It’s fussy, which is perfect for me since I’m short on space but long on time.” Jumping Bean Farm sells chemical free vegetables including cherry tomatoes, green tomatoes, collards, Swiss chard, arugula, yellow and white onions all grown on her parents' four acres…

Steve and Nicole Jonas have a huge red granite rock about the size of a pickup truck in their pasture. Whenever someone asks the couple where they live, they always answer the same way: "By the big rock.” Nicole said it was a no-brainer to name their business Red Granite Farms. Red Granite Farms offers all the typical garden produce at the Ames North Grand Farmers’ Market: eggplant, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and melons. In the fall, they sell squash and pumpkins. Farm-fresh eggs are available year round. Customer Pauline Miller of Ames stopped by on a recent Wednesday …

The Young Professionals of Ames provide a Kids Zone on Saturday mornings from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Ames Main Street Farmers' Market on the 400 block of Main Street. Children can stop by to learn about healthy lifestyles through fun activities such as making grass heads or creating a chalk garden. The Kids Zone can be found on the south side of Main Street across from Tom Evans Park every Saturday through the month of September. Local Ames kid-serving organizations are partnering with the Young Professionals to host the Kids Zone. Their collective goal is to provide educational …

Norine Black speaks passionately about her fifth generation family farm. Once a privately owned seed farm, Black’s Heritage Farm is now a tourist produce farm found just two miles south of Ames, on University Avenue. “This farm is a treasure because it’s been here for so long,” she said. The farm has been in Black's family since 1936. Black’s Heritage Farm offers a full line of locally grown produce and baked goods 3 to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays at the Ames Downtown Farmers' Market in the Main Street Depot. Sweet corn, tomatoes, an assortment of vegetables…

If you want to buy bread from Heavy Horses Farm at the Main Street Farmers' Market, get there early. Heavy Horses bread usually sells out within a couple hours of the market's 8 a.m. opening each Saturday. In addition to artisan breads and scones, Heavy Horses vendors Joe Monahan, 53, and Barbara Ohlund, 44, sell naturally grown produce. They own a five-acre farm in northeast Boone County. If you wonder how a business that sells baked goods and produce came to be called "Heavy Horses Farm," the answer is in the almost 100-year-old farmstead's history. According to Monahan, when he and Ohlund …

Lucy Barton sells fresh, gluten-free baked goods at the Ames Main Street Farmers' Market under the name Tall Tree Bakery. Barton, a West Coast transplant and Ames resident, creates bread, vanilla cake, cupcakes, pasta, brownies, coffee cake and Oreos with alternatives like almond meal or tapioca flour for shoppers with Celiac Disease or gluten allergies. Barton realized she was gluten sensitive while in college. A naturopathic doctor tested her using an elimination diet. After a bad reaction to ranch salad dressing, she read the first ingredient was modified food starch or wheat. From then on…

Jared Anderson, 26, grew up in Minnesota surrounded by corn but an early morning at Dick DeMoss' pumpkin farm was his first time picking it. Anderson and three other men twisted the sweetcorn from its stalks until the ears popped free. When they could hold no more they tossed the corn into a bucket as DeMoss slowly inched his Farmall tractor forward, following the men into rows of sweetcorn. DeMoss provided the first timers gentle instructions, hoping to fill the bed of a pickup within two hours so that he could sell ears by the dozen to bypassers and later at a stand at the North Grand …