The Tualatin Farmers Market is open for the season. The stalls are set up at the Commons, the vendors are back, and the slow, beautiful rhythm of Saturday mornings in Tualatin has resumed. If you have not been yet this year, this is your nudge.
And here is the thing that matters most to anyone paying attention to the calendar: the berries are almost here. Oregon strawberry season starts in late May. After that, the Willamette Valley spends three solid months producing some of the best fruit on Earth. The countdown is on.
🌱 What’s at the Market Right Now (Mid-May)
May is early season. The summer bounty has not arrived yet, but the market is far from empty. Here is what you will find right now:
- Greens: Lettuce, spinach, arugula, kale, chard. The cool-weather crops that thrive in Oregon’s spring climate. These are at their absolute peak right now — tender, sweet, and abundant.
- Asparagus: Oregon asparagus season runs April through early June. If you see it at the market, buy it. It will not last much longer.
- Radishes and turnips: Crisp, colorful, and fast-growing. The first root vegetables of the season.
- Herbs: Fresh basil, cilantro, dill, parsley, mint. The herb vendors are fully stocked and these are grown locally, not shipped from California.
- Plant starts: Tomato starts, pepper starts, flower starts, herb starts. May is prime planting time in Oregon and the market is full of seedlings ready for your garden.
- Eggs and dairy: Local eggs from pastured hens, artisan cheese, fresh milk. Year-round staples from nearby farms.
- Baked goods and prepared foods: Bread, pastries, jams from last year’s fruit, honey, and hot food vendors for your breakfast while you browse.
- Cut flowers: The flower vendors are back with early-season bouquets — ranunculus, tulips, anemones, snapdragons, and the first peonies of the season.
🍓 The Berry Countdown
This is the part every Oregonian waits for. The Willamette Valley is one of the best berry-growing regions on the planet — the climate, the soil, the long summer days, and the cool nights produce fruit with intensity and sweetness that shipped berries from California cannot match.
Here is the timeline:
- Strawberries (late May – mid-June): The first real summer fruit. Oregon strawberries are smaller, redder, sweeter, and more fragrant than the giant pale ones at the grocery store. They arrive at the market in late May and peak in early June. The season is short — 3–4 weeks. When you see them, buy them immediately. Do not wait.
- Raspberries (late June – July): Red raspberries follow strawberries. Delicate, intensely flavored, and impossible to ship without damage — which is why market raspberries taste nothing like grocery store raspberries.
- Blueberries (July – August): Oregon grows excellent blueberries. The bushes thrive in our acidic soil. July blueberries from the market are firm, sweet, and abundant enough to freeze for winter.
- Marionberries (July): Oregon’s signature berry. A blackberry cross developed at Oregon State University, grown almost exclusively in the Willamette Valley. If you have never had a fresh marionberry, you have not experienced Oregon summer. Dark, complex, slightly tart, intensely flavored.
- Blackberries (August – September): The wild Himalayan blackberries that grow on every fence and roadside in the Tualatin area. Free for the picking if you do not mind thorns. Also available cultivated at the market.
🍑 Stone Fruit and Summer Peak (July – August)
After berries, the stone fruit arrives:
- Cherries (late June – July): Rainier and Bing cherries from Oregon and Washington orchards. Sweet, firm, and gone fast.
- Peaches and nectarines (July – August): Oregon grows peaches in the warmer valleys south and east of Portland. Market peaches are tree-ripened and fragrant in a way that shipped peaches never achieve.
- Plums and pluots (August): Late summer fruit with deep color and sweetness.
- Corn (August – September): Not a stone fruit, but the arrival of local corn at the market means summer is at full peak. Sweet corn from Willamette Valley farms, picked that morning.
The arc of the season is part of what makes farmers market shopping so satisfying. Every week brings something new. The market in May looks completely different from the market in August, and the anticipation of what is coming next is half the joy.
💐 The Flower Vendors
Most farmers markets in the Portland metro have at least one cut flower vendor, and the Tualatin market is no exception. Market flower bouquets are a different product from what we sell as a florist — and both have a place:
- Market bouquets are typically single-variety or loosely mixed bunches, wrapped in paper, sold at a flat price. They are farm-fresh, often grown within miles of the market, and tend toward seasonal varieties that bloom prolifically — zinnias, dahlias, sunflowers, sweet peas, snapdragons. They are beautiful, affordable, and casual. Perfect for your own kitchen table or a spontaneous gift.
- Florist arrangements are designed compositions — hand-built with focal flowers, supporting elements, greenery, and structure. They come in a vase, they are delivered to a specific address at a specific time, and they are designed for an occasion or a statement. They are intentional, delivered, and personal.
We are not in competition with market flower vendors. We admire them. They grow incredible product and they connect people to local flowers in a way that is accessible and joyful. What we do — designing, delivering, handling the logistics of getting the right arrangement to the right person at the right time — is a different service for a different need.
The ideal Saturday? Buy a $10 market bouquet for your own kitchen table. And have us deliver a designed arrangement to someone you love. Both things can be true at the same time.
🍰 The Flowers-and-Fruit Pairing
Here is the move that nobody talks about but everybody loves:
Saturday market berries + a delivered flower arrangement = the ultimate hosting combination.
You are having people over Saturday evening. Or Sunday brunch. Or a casual weeknight dinner. You go to the Tualatin market in the morning and buy a flat of strawberries, some fresh bread, local cheese, and a jar of honey. Then you come home to a flower arrangement that was delivered while you were at the market — ordered the day before, waiting on your porch.
Now your table has market-fresh food AND fresh flowers, and the whole evening feels curated without feeling fussy. You spent 30 minutes at the market and 60 seconds ordering flowers online the night before. Total effort: minimal. Total impact: maximum.
This is the summer evening playbook. Market food + delivered flowers + a patio table = a gathering that people remember.
🌾 The Willamette Valley Advantage
The Willamette Valley grows exceptional produce AND exceptional flowers for exactly the same reasons: mild winters, warm dry summers, rich alluvial soil, and long summer daylight hours. The same climate that makes Oregon berries, stone fruit, and vegetables world-class also makes the Valley one of the best cut-flower-growing regions in America.
When you buy flowers from a local florist and fruit from a local farmer, you are benefiting from the same geography. The Tualatin Valley’s wildflowers, the market vegetables, the berry farms, and the flower farms that supply us — they all grow in the same dirt, under the same sky, in the same miraculous climate that makes this region what it is.
That is worth appreciating on a Saturday morning at the market, with a flat of strawberries in one hand and the knowledge that fresh flowers are waiting at home.
📋 The Season at a Glance
- May: Greens, asparagus, radishes, herbs, plant starts, early flower bouquets
- June: Strawberries, raspberries (late), first cherries, peas, garlic scapes
- July: Blueberries, marionberries, cherries, peaches begin, tomatoes begin, zucchini, cucumbers
- August: Peaches, plums, corn, tomatoes peak, peppers, melons, every flower imaginable
- September: Apples, pears, late blackberries, winter squash begins, the last of summer
Every week at the market is different. Every week is worth going. 🍓
Browse our arrangements, plants, and gifts. Same-day delivery across Tualatin and the south metro. Order Friday night, go to the market Saturday morning, and come home to flowers on the porch.