For 16+ years, DJ's Fresh Market has held down the corner of Northland & Lynndale — sweet corn pulled at dawn, flowers straight from our own greenhouses, farm eggs, Amish pantry jars, and a family that knows your name by the second visit.
Some markets have aisles. Ours has seasons. For more than sixteen years, Don Spoehr Jr. and family have set up on the same beloved corner — Northland & Lynndale, in the BP Cheese Hut parking lot — and stacked it high with whatever Wisconsin dirt, sunshine and stubborn hard work decided to give that week.
It starts every February when the greenhouses fire up. By May the tent goes up and the corner explodes into color. From there it's a rolling harvest that doesn't quit until the last pumpkin rolls off the lot on November 1st. That's not a business plan — that's a promise we've kept every morning at 9 sharp, for sixteen straight seasons.
Here's the part the grocery store can't say: most of what hits our tables was growing in our own Fox Valley fields that same morning. Rows of sweet corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, green beans, kohlrabi — planted, weeded and picked by the same hands that bag it up for you.
What we don't grow, we source the honest way: from growers we know by first name. Strawberries from local patches. Peaches trucked straight up from Georgia. Blueberries out of Michigan. Melons off Indiana and Wisconsin sun. If it earned a spot on our table, it earned it.
Every February — while the rest of Appleton is still scraping windshields — our greenhouses fire up and thousands of seedlings start reaching for the glass. By opening day in May, the corner detonates into color: hanging baskets heavy enough to need two hands, flats of bedding flowers, vegetable plants for your own garden — and come fall, mums that own the whole lot. Those slow-motion blooms in the film up top? All ours.
Locally grown strawberries that perfume the whole tent. Georgia peaches that pour juice down your wrist — grab a basket, or a whole 25-pound box when canning season calls. Plump Michigan blueberries by the pint, watermelon and cantaloupe ripened under Indiana and Wisconsin sun, and come fall, Honeycrisp apples that crack like an argument.
None of it "ripened in transit." All of it picked when it was ready — which is exactly why you should never wait until tomorrow for fruit you saw today.
Wisconsin-grown. Pulled from our own stalks every single morning.
So sweet the butter's just showing off.
Sugar snap peas by the scoopful. Green beans with audible snap. Vine tomatoes that still smell like the plant, cucumbers for slicing and cukes for pickling, zucchini by the armload, potatoes for the pot, and kohlrabi — the crunchy Wisconsin classic your grandpa ate with a pocket knife and a pinch of salt. The table changes daily because the harvest does. What's perfect today is what's out front.
Crack one of our farm-fresh brown eggs next to a store egg and you'll see the difference before you taste it. We bring them in by the dozen — and here's the neighborly part: bring back your empty cartons and we'll recycle them right back into service. It even says so on the cooler.
Round out the basket with fresh mushrooms, farm-raised meat worth building a dinner around, and yes — a real bakery table: homestyle, unfussy, and gone by afternoon on a good day. The lineup rotates with the oven, so the honest answer to "what do you have?" is come see — and come early.
When the growing season ends, these shelves keep it going. Our pantry wall is stacked with Amish-made small-batch goods and Wisconsin staples — the yellow price tags are handwritten, the recipes are older than the stand, and the jars have a habit of getting hidden in the back of your cupboard so nobody else finds them.
Small-batch fruit, cooked down slow. Toast is just the delivery vehicle.
Barrel-worthy crunch with real garlic-dill backbone. Sandwiches beware.
Garden heat, jar-sealed — from kid-mild to bragging-rights bold.
The snap that made them famous. Fair warning: one jar is never enough.
A Wisconsin love letter in a jar. If you know, you know — and if you don't, today's the day.
Tapped and boiled in-state. Pancakes will refuse the fake stuff forever after.
Cherry country, captured in a jar. Pie tonight without picking a single cherry.
Raw, golden and gathered nearby. More on this one below — it deserves it.
Raw honey from area beekeepers — unhurried, unfiltered, and full of the same Fox Valley blossoms you drive past every day. Drizzle it, stir it, or eat it straight off the spoon when nobody's looking. We won't tell.
When the sweet corn takes its bow, the corner flips the script: pumpkins of every size, mums, mums and more mums, hay bales and corn stalks, gourds and squash stacked into a full-blown fall wonderland — with Honeycrisp apples and Indian corn riding shotgun. Porch season starts right here, and it all wraps on November 1st.
A season in the life of one very busy corner — shot right at the stand, not staged in a studio. Swing by and you might end up in the next batch.
The stand doesn't follow a calendar — it follows the crops. Here's how a year unfolds on the corner of Northland & Lynndale.
While Appleton's still scraping windshields, our greenhouses fill with thousands of seedlings — flowers and vegetable plants started from seed, stretching for spring.
Wisconsin weather calls the shot — but when the tent goes up, the corner detonates into hanging baskets, flowers and veggie plants. Follow Facebook for the date!
Sweet corn picked at dawn, strawberries, Georgia peaches, blueberries, tomatoes, melons — the tables groan and the line forms early. Worth it, every time.
Pumpkins, gourds, hay bales, corn stalks, squash, Honeycrisp apples, Indian corn and mums — the corner becomes fall itself, right up to the last day.
His name is Don, and for over sixteen years he's been loading up family reunions, restaurant kitchens and local organizations with the same field-fresh goods on the tables out front. Canning weekend? Fundraiser? Ask about volume — like Georgia peaches by the 25-pound box — and the harvest shows up ready.
The stand moves fast — corn lands, peaches arrive, opening day gets called — and it all hits Facebook first. Follow along and you'll know what's on the table before you leave the driveway. Bring a haul home? Tag us. We love seeing where the harvest ends up.
Corner of Northland & Lynndale, in the BP Cheese Hut gas station parking lot. Look for the tents, the wall of color, and probably a line at the corn table. After sixteen years, most of Appleton could drive here with their eyes closed — please don't.
2711 N Lynndale Dr, Appleton, WI 54914
BP Cheese Hut gas station lot — corner of Northland & Lynndale.
Get directions →
Open daily 9 AM – 6 PM, May through November 1.
Wisconsin weather picks opening day — check Facebook or call ahead.
(920) 707-4490 — Don Spoehr Jr. & family
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Leave Us a Google ReviewQuestions, special orders, "do you still have peaches?" — fill this out and hit the button. It opens your own email app with everything already written. All that's left is Send.
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In season the stand gets busy — a quick call or text is the fastest way to check what's on the table today or set aside a volume order.
