Dear market friends,

From market manager Anne Freeman:

"A full house again this week. I got a sneak preview of the produce selection when I visited Riverdale Market on Tuesday, and it just keeps getting better. Wonderful beans, gorgeous yellow zucchini, basil and piles of cool cucumbers will be waiting. In case you haven't found it yet, Beata (Whole World Trading) has lovely iced tea."

From Jessie Sosnicki:

"It's after supper here, and Ben and the men have finished setting up the irrigation again, and Ben just announced they will be picking some of our first slicing tomatoes this evening! Count on huge carrots, beets, green onions, green beans, field cukes, zucchini, peas, some cherry tomatoes, swiss chard & basil from Benny at market! Sweet corn is in tassel, couple more weeks, same time frame for our potatoes too! The potato beetles are out there, but not too bad, just munching the edge plants. We're all on our hands and knees weeding later croppings of carrots etc, and yanking out the big ones... We are spending way more time weeding and tending to later croppings than we are harvesting most days. Got to be done!"

No doubt the other farmers are also weeding, and harvesting until late, since no other e-mails came in from them. And those of us who bought bedding plants and seeds from Colette Murphy and Angelos Kapelaris in the spring, are enjoying our backyard harvests too -- the first cherry tomatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers, beans, chard, turnips and turnip greens, hot peppers, and still a few peas. Now that it's cooled down a bit, it even seems possible to cook again, with all this bounty.

The Dusk Dances began at the park on Tuesday, and from Thursday on there will be a well-stocked food cart at the performances. (Thursday we'll just make more market-food -- gazpacho, foccacia, cinnamon twists -- and on Friday, of course, Friday Night Supper will be more plentiful than usual.) The dances begin at 7 p.m., and this year there's more live music accompanying the dances than in previous years. The dances are a wonderful way to enjoy the summer park landscape and the astonishing variety of cultures represented in dance in Toronto.

Dan Malloy and Matt Leitold, the park bakers, will be baking in the park ovens from 4.30 a.m. on market day as usual, to beat the heat. This week they have to bake extra cakes and cookies as well as bread, since some thieves broke into the rink house last night and not only stole all our change, but also ate most of the park cookies. They found the park cake too and whatever they couldn't finish, they crumbled onto the floor -- thieves with no manners.

See you at the market!

Market web page:www.dufferinpark.ca/market

Park phone number: 416 392-0913.