Thanksgiving is just around the corner—November 26th, to be exact—and turkey orders are already filling fast! Find out below what local farms are bringing pasture-raised Thanksgiving turkeys to your neighborhood Greenmarket.

You can also find the freshest side dish ingredients such as Brussels sprouts, carrots, fennel, winter squash, potatoes, apples, pears, herbs, honey, maple syrup, pre-made pies, butter, and cream. In addition to those items, don't forget GrowNYC Grains flour for all your baking needs, and craft beverages -- we have beer, spirits, and hard cider made from 100% locally-grown ingredients. As well as pickles and condiments for your leftover turkey sandwiches, and much more. 

Dipaola Turkey
Breed: Broad Breasted White (parts and sausage also available)
Where to order: Online at www.dipaolaturkeyfarm.com/special-orders/
Where to pick up: 

† Market open Wednesday before Thanksgiving for pick-ups.

Quattros Game Farm
Breeds: New Holland White, Bourbon Red, Wild 
Where and how to order: Union Square Greenmarket Saturdays, or call the farm store at 845.635.2018
Where and when to pick up: Union Square Greenmarket on Saturday, 11/21 or Wednesday, 11/25
facebook.com/QuattrosFarm/

Fiesty Acres Farm
Breeds: Black Spanish, Bourbon Red, Narragansett, & Broad Breasted White
Also available -- guinea hens and quail.
Where and how to order: Limited availability of turkeys available for purchase at Union Square Greenmarket Wednesday, 11/25
Where and when to pick up: Union Square Greenmarket on Wednesday, 11/25
feistyacres.com

Ramble Creek Farm
Breeds: Broad Breasted White 
Where and how to order: Union Square Greenmarket Fridays; or Call Josh to order at 518-769-0897 or order online at www.ramblecreekfarm.com  
Where and when to pick up: Union Square Greenmarket on Tuesday, 11/24
ramblecreekfarm.com

Violet Hill Farm
Breed: Broad Breasted White
Where and how to order: Union Square Greenmarket Saturdays, McCarren Park/Greenpoint Saturdays or order online at www.violethillfarm.com/turkey-2020 
Where and when to pick up: Union Square Greenmarket or McCarren Park/Greenpoint Greenmarket on Saturday, 11/21 or Union Square Greenmarket Wednesday, 11/25
www.violethillfarm.com/turkey-2020

Green Table Farms
Breeds: Mixed Heritage Breed
Where and how to order: Preorder now to reserve your Thanksgiving Turkey on Fellow Farmer.com. The deposit will process for the weekend you place your order.  The final charge is processed at the time of pick up and for the actual size.  Please note in the comments how many guests you will be serving. 
Where and when to pick up: Union Square Greenmarket on Saturday 11/21, (8:00 am - 4:00 pm) and Domino Park Greenmarket Sunday 11/22 (9am-2pm). 
www.fellowfarmer.com/producer/green-table-farms
If you prefer to have your turkey cooked for you might want Cleaver Co do the cooking for you!

Stone and Thistle Farm 
Breeds: Broad Breasted Whites and Broad Breasted Bronzes
Where and how to order: Preorder at Brooklyn Borough Hall Saturday Greenmarket and Tompkins Square Greenmarket with name, email address, desired weight of fresh turkey, and $20 deposit. $5.95/lb
Where and when to pick up: Brooklyn Borough Hall Greenmarket on Saturday, 11/21 and Tompkins Square Greenmarket on Sunday, 11/22. 
stoneandthistlefarm.com

It's almost our favorite food holiday, THANKSGIVING, and the markets are abundant with all of the ingredients you need for a delicious meal. Check our Global Thanksgiving Recipe Packet to start planning your meal.

We will have some schedule changes to accommodate shopping schedules, see below.

And don't forget your Greenmarket turkey! 

*Market days with an asterisk mean it's a special market, rescheduled to Tuesday or Wednesday, normally held on a Thursday or Friday, so that customers have an opportunity to shop for Thanksgiving ingredients.

Food scrap and clothing collections are the SAME for regular and rescheduled markets, UNLESS otherwise noted. 

Monday, 11/25:
Union Square, MHTN, open 8am-6pm 

Tuesday, 11/26: 
All Compost On-the-Go sites are open 
Bronx Borough Hall Greenmarket, BX, open 8am-4pm Last day for the season
Poe Park Greenmarket, BX, open 8am-3pm Last day for the season
Lincoln Hospital Greenmarket, BX, open 8am-3pm  
*Union Sq Greenmarket (Friday producers), MHTN, open 8am-6pm
Bowling Green Greenmarket, MHTN, open 8am-5pm
City Hall Park Greenmarket, MHTN, open 8am-3pm 
Staten Island Ferry Terminal Greenmarket, MHTN, open 8am-7pm 
*Columbia University Greenmarket, MHTN, open 8am-4pm
Fort Washington Greenmarket, MHTN, open 8am-4pm Last day for the season
Greenmarket at the Oculus, MHTN, open 7am-7pm
Elmhurst Hospital Greenmarket, QNS, open 8am-4pm Last day for the season
Brooklyn Borough Hall Greenmarket, BK, open 8am-5pm  
Brooklyn Army Terminal Fresh Food Box, BK, open 11am-2pm (must order and pay for box on 11/19)
Lenox Hill Fresh Food Box, MHTN, open 3:30pm-6:30pm (must order and pay for box on 11/19)
Moore Street Fresh Food Box, BK, open 3:30-6:30pm (must order and pay for box on 11/19)

Wednesday 11/27:  
All Compost On-the-Go sites are open 
Learn It, Grow It, Eat It Youthmarket, BX, open 10am-3pm Last day for the season 
Bartel-Pritchard Greenmarket, BK, open 8am-3pm 
Woodhull Youthmarket, BK, open 9am-2pm Last day for the season
Fordham Greenmarket, BX, open 8am-4pm Last day for the season
Flushing Greenmarket, QNS, open 8am-3pm Last day for the season 
Corona Greenmarket, QNS, open 8am-3pm Last day for the season (no food scrap or clothing collections)
*97th Street Greenmarket, MHTN, open 8am-2pm
57th Street Greenmarket, MHTN, open Last day for the season 8am-5pm
*Bowling Green Greenmarket, MHTN, open 8am-5pm 
*City Hall Park Greenmarket, MHTN, open 8am-3pm 
Dag Hammarskjold Plaza Greenmarket, MHTN, open 8am-4pm 
Mount Sinai Greenmarket, MHTN, open 8am-5pm Last day for the season 
Parkchester Greenmarket, BX,  open 8am-4pm Last day for the season 
PS 57 Youthmarket, MHTN, open 9am-4pm Last day for the season
Tribeca Greenmarket, MHTN, open 8am-3pm 
*Tucker Square Greenmarket, MHTN, open 8am-5pm
Union Square Greenmarket, MHTN, open 8am-6pm 
Project HOPE Fresh Food Box (must order and pay for box on 11/20)
Uptown Grand Central Fresh Food Box (must order and pay for box on 11/20)

Thursday 11/28 & Friday 11/29:
All Greenmarkets, Youthmarkets, and Fresh Food Box locations closed. No clothing or food scrap collections.
**The Union Square Friday Greenmarket is closed, but Lower East Side Ecology Center will be collecting food scraps at Park and 17th Street. 

Saturday 11/30 & Sunday 12/1
Regular Greenmarket schedule
All Fresh Food Box locations closed. 

Thanksgiving is just around the corner—November 24th, to be exact—and turkey orders are already filling fast! Find out below what local farms are bringing pasture-raised Thanksgiving turkeys to your neighborhood Greenmarket.

Dipaola Turkey

Breed: Broad Breasted White (parts and sausage also available)
Where to order: Online at www.dipaolaturkeyfarm.com/special-orders/
Where to pick up: 

† Market open Wednesday before Thanksgiving for pick-ups.

Quattros Game Farm

Breeds: New Holland White, Bourbon Red, Wild 
Where and how to order: Union Square Greenmarket Saturdays or call the farm store at 845.635.2018
Where and when to pick up: Union Square Greenmarket on Saturday, 11/19 or Wednesday, 11/23
www.quattrosfarm.com

Roxbury Mountain Maple 

Breeds: Dutch Broad Breasted White 
Where and how to order: Union Square Greenmarket Monday and Wednesday or Columbia Greenamarket Thursday, via their website or call the farm store at 607.422.0059
Where and when to pick up: Union Square Greenmarket on Monday, 11/21, Union Square Greenmarket Wednesday, 11/23 or Columbia Greenmarket Tuesday, 11/22†
www.roxburymountainmaple.com
† Columbia University Market open Tuesday before Thanksgiving for pick-ups.

Tamarack Hollow Farm

Breeds: Broad Breasted Bronze, Bourbon Red
Where and how to order: Union Square Greenmarket Wednesdays or by emailing tamarackhollowfarm@gmail.com
Where and when to pick up: Union Square Greenmarket on Wednesday, 11/23
tamarackhollowfarm.com/thanksgiving-turkey

Violet Hill Farm

Breed: Broad Breasted White & Black
Where and how to order: Union Square Greenmarket Saturdays, McCarren Park/Greenpoint Saturdays, or online at www.violethillfarm.com/turkey-2016
Where and when to pick up: Union Square Greenmarket or McCarren Park/Greenpoint Greenmarket on Saturday, 11/19 or Union Square Greenmarket Wednesday, 11/23
www.violethillfarm.com

It's almost our favorite food holiday, THANKSGIVING, and the markets are abundant with all of the ingredients you need for a delicious meal. We will have some schedule changes to accomodate shopping schedules, see below.  

*Market days with an asterisk mean it's a special market, rescheduled to Tuesday or Wednesday, normally held on a Thursday or Friday, so that customers have an opportunity to shop for Thanksgiving ingredients. Textile & food scrap collections closed at rescheduled markets. 

Wednesday 11/26:  Please shop early; markets may close early due to the inclement weather.
97th Street open *Wednesday 8am-2pm. Compost & textile collection cancelled.
57th Street open 8am-5pm.
Astoria open 8am-3pm. Last day for the season.
Bowling Green Greenmarket: open *Wednesday 8am-5pm. 
Bartel Pritchard Square - Closed due to inclement weather.
Bowling Green open *Wednesday 8am-5pm. Compost & textile collection cancelled.
City Hall Park Open *Wednesday 8am-4pm.
Dag Hammarskjold Plaza open 8am-4pm, compost & textile collection 8am-3pm. 
Grand Army Plaza Open *Wednesday 8am-4pm. Compost & textile collection cancelled.
Mount Sinai open 8am-5pm, compost & textile collection 8am-2pm. Last day for the season.
NY Botanical Garden open 9am-3pm. Last day for the season.
Tribeca open 8am-3pm, compost & textile collection 8am-1pm. 
Tucker Square: Open *Wednesday 8am-5pm.  
Union Square Wednesday open 8am-6pm, food scrap collection 8am-5pm.

Thursday 11/27 & Friday 11/28:
All Greenmarkets closed. No textile or food scrap collection.

Saturday 11/29 & Sunday 11/30
Regular schedule.

Do you have any idea what goes into raising a turkey? When talking about the birds that have become so synonymous with this time of year, we realized we didn’t know much, either. Luckily, we have access to some of the best turkey farmers in the region, so we rushed right over to Zaid Kurdieh of Norwich Meadows Farm and Maria Quattro of Quattro's Game Farm to learn exactly what goes into raising the centerpiece of many Thanksgiving tables.
 
For Quattro’s Game Farm, everything starts from the egg. They keep their favorite birds from the past year and mate them, selecting the eggs that will go on to be the next year’s Thanksgiving turkeys. The eggs are then incubated, hatched, raised, and processed on the farm. Norwich Meadows Farm also raises and processes on the farm, but buys their turkeys when they’re poults, getting them when they’re newly hatched and raising them from there and from what we’ve heard, raising turkeys is a lot of work. A friend of Zaid’s warned him when he first started to raise turkeys that “a turkey in its first few weeks of life is just looking for a place to die.” Sounds harsh but, in fact, during those first couple of weeks, the farmers have to keep a constant eye on the poults – ensuring they eat their food, making sure they don’t drown in their drinking water, and preventing them from commingling with the chickens. Unfortunately, even with keeping a constant eye on them, a lot of them still won’t make it. This year, Zaid started with around 190 poults and will be processing around 140. 
 
After four weeks, the critical time for a poult has passed and the turkeys are much more independent, although the farmers can’t relax too much. Turkeys are feisty creatures that have a herd mentality and have been known to take down electric fences without too much effort, electric jolts and all. Plus, heritage breeds and wild turkeys fly (domestic ones, not so much). Not far, mind you, but they still fly. It is for this reason that Zaid only raises domestic turkeys. He doesn’t want his turkeys to fly off his property and onto a nearby road where they could get hit by a car. Quattro’s raises domestic, heritage, and wild turkeys but they also have a lot of property and are not as worried about them getting hit by cars. They do, however, end up picking them up from neighboring farms fairly regularly. In fact, on the day we spoke with Maria she told us the heritage turkeys had once again made their way onto their neighbor’s farm and her father had gone to retrieve them. I guess we can’t blame the birds for wanting to spread their wings a little bit! 
 
After they've hatched and lived through the early weeks, eaten well, roamed freely while avoiding colliding with a car or being eaten by a predator and are generally speaking, happy and healthy, it’s time for processing and delivery to New York City Greenmarkets. Both Quattro’s and Norwich Meadows have on-farm processing and control the process from start to finish. Quattro’s is a much larger operation than Norwich Meadows and raises around 400 turkeys so it can sometimes take a few days to finish processing them all. Norwich Meadows processes far fewer turkeys but they are also Halal, so only Zaid can process the turkeys. It takes him at least a day to get through all of them. Then comes the plucking, the cleaning, and the packaging. 
 
As you can see, there is a lot of hard work that goes into raising and processing each of these birds but it is all worth it for these farmers so you can have the best tasting bird out there on your table. The turkeys Greenmarket farmers sell you have lived healthy, well-fed, wandering-outside-in-the-sunshine kind of lives, and they undoubtedly taste better for all of those reasons. Plus, it’s pretty great to know that the turkey you enjoy on Thanksgiving was raised and processed by the same person that sold it to you. You can ask the farmers questions about exactly how the turkeys were raised, what kind of food they ate, and even hear fun stories about the turkeys roaming (or flying) free and they’ll know the answers. When you buy directly from a local, family farm, you know they care and want the best not only for their turkeys but also for their customers.
 
We’d be remiss to leave out how Zaid and Maria celebrate Thanksgiving on the farm. Zaid takes one of his birds to his sister’s house, where she cooks it the traditional method by roasting it in the oven. Turkey isn’t too common in Middle Eastern culture (Zaid’s mother is American and his father is Palestinian), but they still eat it once a year on Thanksgiving. Maria’s grandmother, Carmella (the owner of the farm), has cooked Thanksgiving turkeys for years so it’s just second nature to her. She stuffs the turkey and roasts it. One thing she doesn’t do? Brine her turkeys. Maria explained that the salt in the brine gets into the meat and masks the natural flavor of the turkey. “If you’re paying for these delicious turkeys, why would you want to hide the flavor?” Maria asked. 
 
As we all sit down with our family and friends to celebrate around nature’s delicious fall bounty, let us all remember to be thankful for our farmers and the hours they toil each year to bring us city dwellers fresh, delicious, healthy food. We’re also pretty grateful we’re not going to get a call from the neighbor during dinner to come pick up a wayward flock of turkeys!
 
For more information on our Greenmarket turkey producers, visit our Turkey buying Guide here.

Not only does our staff love working out at markets—even as it starts to get cold, over 20 will remain open until Christmas, or year-round—we love shopping at them for the same reason you do: we’re avid home cooks. See our staff picks for favorite items to buy at the market to celebrate Thanksgiving, and reference the annual Greenmarket Turkey Guide to find out where to place an order for your bird.

Greenmarket Staff Picks

“I got a pumpkin from Acevedo Farm…but I already ate it. I roasted it in the toaster oven for lunch.” – Maria Rojas, FARMroots Communications Associate 

“Oysters! We do oyster shucking at my house the night before. And a glass of Greenmarket Wheat beer to celebrate the harvest season.” – Liz Carollo, Publicity Manager

“I get my sweet potatoes from Lani’s Farm and Samascott Orchards.” – Michael Hurwitz, Greenmarket Director 

“Fuji apples from Terhune Orchards (perfect for apple pie for Thanksgiving), olive focaccia from Central Bakery for leftover sandwiches, Ronnybrook cream (perfect for whipping for a pumpkin pie topping) and Amantai Farm's broccoli (it's the best) for the perfect veggie side for dinner. There’s so much! It’s hard to choose just one favorite.” – Brittany Ryan, Socrates, Forest Hills and Astoria Greenmarket Manager 

“Bakers Bounty's challah loaf with Wilklow Orchard's Winesap apples for some apple-challah stuffing!” – Luciana Ramirez, City Hall and Fort Greene Greenmarket Manager

“Greg Lebak's [Lebak Farm] Brussels sprouts, sauteed then roasted and topped with parmesan! They are small, sweet (after a frost or two) and delicious.” – Samantha Blatteis, Union Square Greenmarket Manager

“I guess I would say quince from Treelicious Orchards, to make a quince chutney. We put it out with cheese and crackers as an appetizer.” – Caroline Hiteshew, Publicity Assistant and Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket Manager

“Divine Brine's Cranberry apple chutney for a new twist on cranberry sauce.” – Luz Portillo, Mount Sinai, Poe Park and Inwood Greenmarkets EBT and Market Manager 

“Potato salad with Bill Maxwell’s [Maxwell’s Farm] carola potatoes.” – Rob Shepherd, EBT Project Associate

“I really love a delicata squash from Joe O’Brien [Healthway Farm].”  –  Alexis Stevens, EBT Project Manager

 “Farmer Ground Flour for cornmeal. I like to add cornbread to my stuffing.” – June Russell, Manager of Farm Inspections, Strategic Development and Regional Grains Project

“Pre-made lard pie crust from Flying Pigs Farm,”  – Davy Hughes, Union Square Greenmarket Operations Manager

“Apples from Locust Grove to make Four and Twenty Blackbirds recipe for apple pie.” – Cheryl Huber, Greenmarket Assistant Director

“Cranberry horseradish chutney from Beth’s Farm Kitchen, the perfect condiment on a turkey sandwich made with leftovers.” – Jeanne Hodesh, Greenmarket Communications Associate