Walk into Amber Waves on Main Street in Amagansett this week and the tables still look like July. Heirloom tomatoes stacked by color, sweet corn husked to order, zucchini piled the way it has been since June. Nothing about the scene tells you that ten minutes away in Hampton Bays, a different farmers market is already down to its final four Thursdays. Nothing tells you that in Montauk, the market on the green closes the same week Good Ground does in Hampton Bays. And nothing tells you that the Saturday market in Westhampton Beach will still be setting up folding tables on the Village Green when Thanksgiving decorations start going up in the shop windows nearby.
Most people treat the East End's farm stand season as one long, undifferentiated stretch from Memorial Day to sometime around Halloween. It isn't. It's several separate calendars running at once, and they end at wildly different points. If you've been assuming you have all fall to make it back to your favorite Thursday market, for some of them you actually have about a month.
Two Calendars, One Highway Corridor
Good Ground Farmers Market in Hampton Bays is in its fourth season, held rain or shine every Thursday from 3 to 7 p.m. in the Hampton Bays Plaza parking lot at 190 West Montauk Highway. The season runs May 5 through September 15. Since that closing date falls on a Tuesday this year, the last actual market Thursday lands on September 10.
The Montauk Farmers Market, the largest on the East End with more than 40 vendors, follows a nearly identical Thursday close. It runs 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the green across from the Montauk Chamber of Commerce, and this year's run closes September 10 as well, the same week as Good Ground.
Then there's Westhampton Beach. The Farmers' Market there hosts more than 60 vendors on the Village Green every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and the posted 2026 schedule keeps running well past Labor Day and into late November. It isn't a shoulder-season afterthought. It's the same size crowd, the same producer list, still trading two and a half months after Good Ground and Montauk have folded their tents.
Here's how the three stack up if you're planning the rest of your summer:
| Market | Day & Hours | Location | 2026 Closing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good Ground Farmers Market | Thursdays, 3–7 p.m. | Hampton Bays Plaza, 190 W. Montauk Hwy | September 10 |
| Montauk Farmers Market | Thursdays, 9 a.m.–2 p.m. | The Green, across from Montauk Chamber | September 10 |
| Westhampton Beach Farmers' Market | Saturdays, 9 a.m.–1 p.m. | The Village Green | Late November |
The practical upshot: if Thursday has been your habit, this is roughly the last stretch of it for two of the three. If you've never made the switch to a Saturday morning at the Village Green, this is the year to start, because it's the one on this list still running when the leaves turn.
What's Actually Filling the Tables Right Now
The reason this window matters isn't nostalgia. It's produce timing. Mid-August on the East End is the peak overlap point for a specific list: watermelon, eggplant, cherry tomatoes, full-size tomatoes, green beans, spinach, and sweet corn all hit their stride at once. It's the fullest a farm stand table gets all year, and it doesn't hold that shape for long.
Corn is the clearest example of why the calendar matters more than it looks. A lot of the sweet corn showing up at East End stands right now is Silver Queen, a white variety that needs a full 92 days from seed to harvest, making it one of the longest-season corns commonly grown. That's also why corn earworm pressure runs heaviest downstate in August. The corn you're eating this week was planted in May with this exact window in mind, and it's not a crop farms can simply replant to extend the season. When a given stand's Silver Queen run ends, it ends.
The Stands Worth the Specific Drive
A few names come up again and again for good reason, and each one does something the others don't.
Amber Waves Farm at 367 Main Street in Amagansett is less a roadside stand than a full operation. The nonprofit farm spans roughly 45 acres across Amagansett and East Hampton, employs more than 100 people at peak season, and feeds over 300 CSA member families out of a market that's open daily. The table right now runs heirloom tomatoes, sweet corn, zucchini, lettuces, and stone fruit, all grown on-site.
Pike Farms on Sagg Main Street in Sagaponack has been growing in the same fields for decades and keeps things simpler: sweet corn, vine-ripened tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, summer squash, basil, and sunflowers, sold with none of the polish of a bigger operation and none of the markup either.
Round Swamp Farm in East Hampton runs out of a 15-acre homestead that's 250 years old and carries National Bicentennial Farm status, with additional market locations in Bridgehampton and Montauk. It's less about raw produce and more about what gets made from it: prepared foods and baked goods that have built a genuine following.
Milk Pail on Montauk Highway in Water Mill is the one to flag for the coming weeks specifically. Owners John and Evelyn Halsey run it as an apple destination, with u-pick opening as the season turns from corn and tomatoes toward orchard fruit.
Balsam Farm and Marilee Foster's stand on Sagg Main Street round out the Sagaponack cluster, both known for heirloom vegetables and produce that rarely makes it to a regular grocery aisle.
Over at the Westhampton Beach market on the Village Green, two vendors are worth seeking out specifically once you're there: Browder's Birds for organic poultry and Mecox Bay Dairy for cheese, both fixtures of a market list that runs far longer than most.
Planning the Rest of the Season
If you live between Hampton Bays and Westhampton and want to make the most of what's left, the order of operations is fairly simple.
First, get to Good Ground or the Montauk market on one of the next few Thursdays if either has been part of your routine. There are four Thursdays left before both close on September 10, and neither has an extended fall schedule to fall back on.
Second, watch for the pivot at Milk Pail as corn winds down and u-pick apples take over. That transition tends to happen exactly when the last Silver Queen ears are getting harder to find elsewhere.
Third, if you've never made it to the Village Green on a Saturday, this is the season to start. It's the one market on this list that will still be running well after the other two have gone quiet for the year, and with 60-plus vendors it's large enough to replace a Thursday habit outright.
None of this requires a special trip. It requires knowing that the calendar isn't uniform, and that the stand you love might be counting down while the one across the highway has months left to run.
That kind of local rhythm, knowing which market survives past Labor Day and which one doesn't, which stand's corn is worth timing your week around, is the same texture of knowledge that shapes how we think about this area as The Connelly Team. If you're weighing a move to Hampton Bays, Westhampton, or anywhere else on the East End and want a conversation grounded in what it's actually like to live here week to week, reach out. And if you're already local and just curious what your home might be worth in this market, request your free home valuation any time.
