Living in a city, it’s easy to buy your fruit and vegetables and forget that many of them have been transported thousands of kilometers before hitting the shelves of your nearest supermarket.

Not only does it put a strain on the environment, it also leads us to eating half-raw tomatoes, tasteless berries and pesticide-drenched apples. Starting from the first week of August, however, there’s no need to settle for that. For 12 weeks in a row, farmers from the Stockholm region will be setting up a market every Saturday, selling their wares. Bondens egen marknad – Swedish for “the farmer’s own market” – has been a success for several years now, and it’s easy to understand why. It’s rare to find so many delicious, locally-produced products in one place at the same time. It’s also a chance to meet the producers face to face, talk about food and get their best tips directly from the source.

Stockholm has two market places, Tessinparken on Östermalm and Katarina Bangata on Södermalm. The farmers set up their stands at ten in the morning, and sell everything from bread and jam to fish, meat, honey, vegetables, cheese and sheep furs.

As of this year, even the Stockholm archipelago got its own farmers’ market. The Vaxholm market was held for the first time in June, and the next one will take place in August, with the focus on food produced in the archipelago. A recent study found that there are over 200 food producers among the islands, but many of them lack suitable channels to market their produce to a wider audience.

These products – among them farm cheeses, herbs, marmalades, vegetables, meet and even quail eggs – are rarely sold in the Stockholm supermarkets.

“We want develop the archipelago into an exciting food cluster,” says Lisa Lönner Pulkkinen, a farmer residing at Resarö Island, one of the initiative takers behind the market.

Bondens egen marknad, Vaxholm, 18 Aug, 15 Sep, 13 Oct and 15 Dec between 11-16.

Bondens egen marknad, Östermalm and Södermalm, 12 Saturdays starting on 4 Aug between 10-15.