Planting the Seeds of a Community Tradition
The History Snippet…
Woodinville’s Farmers Market began in 1993 through the community-building efforts of Carol Edwards, the energetic local leader often remembered as the “Mother of Woodinville.” More than a place to buy produce, the market became a Saturday gathering filled with farmers, makers, music, food, and the playful community spirit Edwards brought to so many Woodinville traditions. After moving among several locations over the years, the market has returned close to its early downtown roots and now welcomes visitors on Festival Street in the Schoolhouse District.
The Full Story…
On a summer Saturday in Woodinville, Festival Street comes alive.
Tents pop up. Farmers unload crates of berries, vegetables, flowers, and fresh bread. Artists arrange pottery, jewelry, candles, and colorful handmade goods. Neighbors stop to talk, children explore, musicians play, and visitors discover that Woodinville offers much more than wine.
It is a familiar weekend scene today, but the tradition began more than three decades ago.
The Woodinville Farmers Market was established in 1993, during a remarkable period in the community’s history. Woodinville had just become an incorporated city, and local residents were working to shape what their new city would become.
At the center of many of those efforts was Carol Edwards.
Carol Edwards and the Spirit of Woodinville
Carol Edwards believed communities should be fun, connected, and perhaps just a little unexpected.
She founded the Woodinville Weekly, helped create Teen Northshore, and was the creative force behind the wonderfully quirky All Fools’ Day Parade. She also helped establish the Woodinville Farmers Market.
Carol had a talent for turning simple ideas into beloved community traditions. A farmers market could provide fresh local food, but it could also offer something equally important: a place for people to meet one another.
That welcoming spirit became part of the market from the beginning.
The market was not simply a row of vegetable stands. It brought together growers, artisans, performers, families, and community organizations. Shopping for lettuce or flowers might turn into a conversation with a neighbor, a discovery of a local artist, or an afternoon spent enjoying downtown Woodinville.
In true Carol Edwards fashion, the market became part marketplace and part community celebration.
The Market’s First Home
Early records place the Farmers Market near Northeast 175th Street and 133rd Avenue Northeast, in the civic center surrounding the former Sorenson School, Woodinville Community Center, and early City Hall.
A national farmers-market directory from 1996 listed the market at that intersection, confirming that it was already an established seasonal gathering just a few years after it began.
The location placed the market in the middle of community life. Visitors could shop, attend local celebrations, and take part in the activities happening around the community center.
During the early 2000s, the market also participated in some of Woodinville’s more playful traditions. Spring arts-and-crafts events were held alongside the All Fools’ Day festivities and the famous Basset Bash, when floppy-eared dogs and their owners took over downtown.
It was Woodinville at its most Woodinville: local, lively, friendly, and not overly serious.
A Market on the Move
Like many long-running community institutions, the Woodinville Farmers Market has had more than one address.
In fact, it has moved several times as downtown Woodinville has grown and changed.
For a period, the market operated beside the community center that was later renamed the Carol Edwards Center, creating an especially fitting connection to its founder.
It also spent time on the undeveloped Woodinville Village property in the Tourist District before returning to the downtown civic campus.
By 2011, the market was operating on a temporarily closed section of 133rd Avenue between City Hall and the Carol Edwards Center. City records from that year described a market with approximately 35 vendors operating across 23 Saturdays.
The market later moved to DeYoung Park, across from Molbak’s Garden + Home. There, tents filled the small downtown park, and shoppers wandered between vendors beneath the trees.
In 2022, the market moved again—this time to Festival Street and the Schoolhouse District lawn, beside City Hall and the sports fields.
After traveling around Woodinville for decades, the market had returned remarkably close to the civic-center neighborhood where its early history began.
The Market That Helped Inspire 21 Acres
The Farmers Market also played an unexpected role in the creation of another Woodinville institution.
In 1999, community members began searching for a more permanent location for the market. That effort grew into a larger vision for a place devoted to sustainable agriculture, local food, and education.
The idea eventually became 21 Acres.
Land was identified, purchased, and developed into the nonprofit farm and education center Woodinville knows today. Although 21 Acres and the seasonal Woodinville Farmers Market ultimately became separate organizations, their histories remain connected.
The search for a lasting home for one community market helped plant the seed for an entirely new organization.
More Than Tomatoes
Farmers markets have always been about food, but their deeper value is often found in the conversations that happen between the booths.
They connect shoppers with the people who grow, bake, create, and produce what they sell. They give small businesses a place to begin. They create opportunities for musicians, nonprofit organizations, artists, and community groups to meet the public.
Most importantly, they give a community a place to gather without needing a formal invitation.
The Woodinville Farmers Market has carried that purpose through changing locations, changing organizations, and more than 30 seasons.
Today, it continues under the Northshore Farmers Markets organization, bringing together farmers, food producers, artists, performers, residents, and visitors each summer.
A Tradition That Keeps Growing
Carol Edwards understood something important about building a community: people need reasons to come together.
Sometimes the reason is a parade.
Sometimes it is a newspaper.
And sometimes it is a basket of strawberries, a handmade bowl, a bouquet of flowers, and a Saturday morning spent visiting with neighbors.
The Woodinville Farmers Market has moved several times since 1993, but its purpose has remained remarkably steady. It continues to support local growers and makers while creating the kind of welcoming gathering place Carol Edwards imagined more than three decades ago.
The next time you visit the market, take a moment to look beyond the booths.
You are not simply shopping.
You are participating in one of Woodinville’s longest-running community traditions.
Sources
Woodinville Heritage Society Archives & Collections -oral-histories
YMCA of Greater Seattle, history of the Carol Edwards Center
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “Woodinville Farmers Market Marks 10 Years,” 2003
Woodinville Weekly, 30th-season Farmers Market , 2023
City of Woodinville Farmers Market reports and DeYoung Park records
