SEASON IN FULL BLOOM FOR FARMERS' MARKET

The parking lot was full. Seconds before the clock struck 3 p.m., people emerged from their vehicles.

Many headed for the Sweitzer Farms truck. Word had spread quickly that the Cobden, Ill., vegetable farmer had sweet corn, the only one of 17 vendors last week who did. People waited in line to fill their plastic shopping bags with four to eight ears of corn at a quarter an ear.

It's the weekly Cape Girardeau Farmers' Market, held at 3 p.m. each Thursday on the Plaza Galleria parking lot on Independence Street.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the lot beans and potatoes were big draws.

Gene Dillow and his wife, Cathy, were busy, weighing green beans, yellow beans, butter beans, jade beans and red and white potatoes.

The Dillows had spent the big part of Wednesday and early Thursday morning filling up baskets for the market.

Elsewhere down the line, vegetables of all sorts could be found -- cabbage, rhubarb, peppers, squash, onion, blueberries, beets, peaches.

And tomatoes.

Tomatoes came in just last week, said Marilyn Peters, who is president of the weekly farmers' market group and raises vegetables on the family farm near Bertrand, Mo.

The Cape Girardeau Farmers Market includes 22 growers from Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois. The market here is designed for vendors who produce fruits, vegetables, plants and flowers.

Some vendors sell out and leave early. Others will be around until 7 p.m.

The local market here is in its 16th year at the same site.

"I'm here every week," said Thelma Brothers of Cape Girardeau. "I'm happy they're here, and aren't these green beans great?"

Ed Arnzen of Cape Girar-deau was making his first stop of the season at the market. He made his first stop at the Sweitzer stand, put his corn in the car and headed for other stands. "I'm not through yet," he said.

Curvin and Dawn High were busy filling orders for home-made pies, cakes and breads of all sorts. The Highs call their operation the Down Home Bakery, located in Bluford, Ill., near Mount Vernon.

"We cook it at home," said Curvin High. "We bake every Wednesday for the market here."

Farmers' markets across Missouri are at an all-time high this year, with as many as 75. More than 35,000 Missouri acres are devoted to the raising of vegetables, with more than half that acreage 19,000 in Southeast Missouri.

Farmers' markets have become a major sales outlet for agricultural producers nationwide. The number of farmers' markets in the United States has grown dramatically over the past four years.

Many of the same growers take vegetables to Cape Girardeau, Paducah, Ky., or Carbondale and Anna, Ill.

The National Farmers' Market Directory reveals more than 2,800 farmers markets operating last year in the United States, an increase of more than 400 since 1996 when the U.S. Department of Agriculture started collecting farmers' market data.