It only feels like the growing season is winding down.

“We’ve still got a couple more months to go, because the gardens are just hitting peak right now,” said International Falls-area farmer Stacy Hall, as she sold a variety of home-grown and home-made produce Wednesday at the weekly Community Market downtown.

“It’s harvest-time,” she said.

A profusion of colorful food and goods – from bread and honey and jelly and pickles to sweet corn, beets, carrots, potatoes and tomatoes – attracted shoppers like Marcia Turenne of the Falls.

“I keep looking for different things. Mainly stuff that we can eat,” she said, “‘cause I don’t like to cook anymore.”

Hall sells honey, jam, and frozen chickens – plus lip balm and goat milk soap, both home-made with beeswax.

Popularity-wise, she said, two items have risen to the top for her this market season.

“Definitely, the chickens and the honey are kind of neck-and-neck,” Hall said.

Penni Cole, who sells fresh home-made bread, said sales have been increasing.

“And I think this year we’ve had more vendors than any other year,” the Falls woman said. “For the most part I think this season’s gone well. Our parking lot is full. We’re always looking for new vendors.”

Market night is as much about socializing as anything else.

And sometimes the vendors get to laughing.

Hall remembers one of her first years at the market, when a man bought a dozen eggs from her daughter, Heather, and later stormed back and yelled at Heather for selling him rotten eggs.

Well, they were green.

“And he did not realize that the chickens raise green eggs,” Hall said. “So that was pretty funny.”

The vendors are “like a small family,” Cole said.

“This is our ‘out’ time,” she said. “This is the time I get to do my visiting and catching up and all that good stuff. I really, thoroughly enjoy it. This is what I was born to do — bake.”

Cole said vendors try to sell through the second week in October.

The market is open from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays and 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays at the Backus Community Center, 900 5th St. Call (218) 285-7225 for more information.