She has fond memories of farmers' markets, places where the lettuce isn't smothered in cellophane and the smell of fresh corn mingles with ripened peppers, making the air so sweet you can taste it.

When she was a little girl growing up in East Lansing, Mich., her mother used to bring her to the city's year-round farmer's market every week, winter or summer, to buy farm-fresh eggs, crisp vegetables, and sweet strawberries and peaches.

Her mom liked to make jams and would buy the fruit to use in her recipes.

Now Marshall, Safety Harbor Chamber of Commerce economic development officer, is a key organizer of the city's first farmer's market on a vacant lot with a scenic view of the bay across the street.

Marshall didn't know the particulars of starting a farmer's market, so she enlisted the help of Bob Fernandez, who has run the downtown Clearwater farmer's market along with his wife, Patricia, for six years.

One reason the Safety Harbor market will be held on a weekday is so it won't compete with the Clearwater market, which is open Saturdays on the 600 block of Cleveland Street.

Business is so slow -- about 500 customers a day -- it simply cannot take the competition.

Also, Fernandez said farmer's markets may fare better on weekdays rather than weekends, because more people come to the downtown areas to work.

But there's another, more obvious problem.

"Our site is somewhat hidden. Some people drive right by and don't see us," he said.

That probably won't happen in Safety Harbor, where the empty lot near City Hall is "a great site for something like this," Marshall said.

The property is owned by Walter Loick, who leased it to the chamber for $1 a year so it could be used for the farmer's market. It has been empty for about 20 years. The city provided money for green and white striped umbrellas for shade.

The lot is next door to the Living Room and the Sanctuary of Safety Harbor, a personal fitness, massage and skin care business Mark Smith runs out of a remodeled house. It was Smith who came up with the idea to start a green market.

One day he looked at the lot and thought it was so overgrown and unkept, "You couldn't even see the bay," he said.

He and a friend got together and cleaned it up. That's when the thought occurred to him that this would be an ideal place for a farmer's market.

Like Marshall, Smith has been to farmers' markets -- especially in his native England, where he says they are "really common." Once he even operated a stall at an outdoor market in Swindon, a town about an hour from London, where he sold furniture and antiques.

But he doesn't want vendors to sell those things at the Safety Harbor farmer's market.

"I didn't want it to be a flea market," Smith said. "Safety Harbor is a classy, affluent area."

The goal is to bring people to the downtown area, and give them a reason to stay for awhile, take strolls along the bay and do business in its shops.

Eight to 10 vendors have agreed to set up shop on the lot each Thursday morning. Some will sell fruits and vegetables, some will sell flowers, some will sell baked goods and a few will sell handmade crafts.

Some of the vendors also sell their wares at the downtown farmer's market in Clearwater Saturdays.

Dell Kelleher will attempt to do both with the help of her mother, Sunny.

Kelleher is a vendor at the Clearwater farmer's market and also holds down a full-time job as a lab analyst at H2O Utilities. Each Friday, she can be found at the Tampa wholesale farmers' market at 1:30 a.m. mingling with migrant farm workers, looking for the best tomatoes, strawberries, squash and citrus she can find.

She didn't grow up on a farm, but said she is a fourth-generation Pinellas County resident who "loves to play in the dirt."

For five years while pursuing a degree at St. Petersburg Junior College, she operated her own business, Granny's Garden, in a tent on Main Street and Alternate U.S. 19 in Dunedin, selling produce.

"It's a people-oriented business," said Kelleher. "People ask where the produce comes from, what's in season."

And she knows how to tell if produce is fresh, too. Ask her about tomatoes, for example. She won't tell you to give it the squeeze test, but to "look at the stem end. If it's white, it's fresh."

Because Kelleher works weekdays, her mother, Sunny, will sell the produce at the Safety Harbor farmer's market. But Kelleher still will be at the wholesale market at 1:30 a.m.. Her mother doesn't want to do that part of the job.

"I do the labor," she said, adding it involves quite a bit of lifting. "Now I'll do it twice a week."

If you go

The Safety Harbor farmer's market opened Thursday and will continue from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. each Thursday through April 26. Eight to 10 vendors sell a wide variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, baked goods, concrete garden accessories, wood crafts, baskets and bonsai trees. The market is located on an empty lot at Main Street and Bayshore Boulevard in Safety Harbor. Admission is free. Parking is also free and available on site.

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