If you don’t slow down, you can miss a lot at the downtown Sacramento farmers market. It’s a bustling market where many hands often reach for the same ripe peach, and if you’re not careful, overflowing hand carts sometimes wheel over toes. Eager buyers thrust bulging plastic bags of produce at lone farmers, hoping theirs will be the first on the scale to be weighed. Yet, below the hum of hands and traffic, row upon row of glorious produce awaits in strips of orange, clusters of pale green, and bursts of shining purple. It calls.

For those patient shoppers willing to watch and listen, this week’s market offered a wealth of new harvests. Pickles, cactus, and cutting celery were among them.

The pickles cried out the loudest, “Pick me! Pick me!” Glashoff Farms put on quite the country display to showcase these crisp, juicy, dill and garlic spears, complete with hand painted signage and chubby, round single deli-style pickles for only $1.

The cutting celery stood at attention under signs that shouted, “New! New! New!” A keen gardener’s eye could spot these leafy friends from across the aisle. They waved in invitation with the wind. It’s been a while since the last taste of celery died away under the warmth of spring. This cool-season vegetable is a reminder of fall’s approaching arrival. “Welcome back,” I think as I cup the peat pot gently in my hands and bring the baby plant to eye level in admiration. For $2, I take it home with me to plant in the garden. I’ll buy another one in a few weeks (Woodsong Herbs will have them through the end of the month) and stagger my planting.

Tucked quietly in the corner at Satiety Vineyards stand, an older man peels spikes from cactus paddles with his knife. At $1 for two paddles, these crisp, sticky paddles will add tang and nutrition to Mexican salsas. You can find cactus, or nopales, canned in jars at the supermarket during the off season. Yet, like most seasonal produce, nothing can compare to the flavor of a fresh cactus paddle. This fleeting season is one to relish—quite literally.