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Happy birthday to Edinburgh’s Farmers’ Market which celebrates its tenth anniversary tomorrow.

It wasn’t the first (that was Perth in 1999) but Ed Farmers’ Market has boomed over the last decade and each year it attracts around a quarter of a million people to its Castle Terrace location.

By buying direct from the market, customers get to find out about the food they are buying from the people who know the most about it: the producers.

Cutting out the middle man also helps make smaller scale farms sustainable, reduces food miles and keeps money in the local economy. Everyone’s a winner. Except the supermarkets.

The market is also important for the city’s restaurateurs. David Haetzman of The Rutland has used ingredients bought at the market to rustle up meals while Neil Forbes at The Atrium and Blue uses it to create some of the dishes on his restaurant menus.

Long established fish restaurant Creelers doesn’t need to buy from the market; they supply it. Tim James has been selling the same fish and shellfish used in the restaurant at the market pretty much since it began.

As part of the birthday celebrations, tomorrow’s market features:

Katy Ashworth from Cbeebies I Can Cook program

Children’s cooking lessons from Cookingmania

Live Music

A competition to win £500 worth of Edinburgh Farmers’ Market vouchers

A parking promotion

and finally, one for all the adults, free face painting.