AC

It was the first time husband-and-wife team Andrew and Christina Norman had brought the vegetables grown on their Covington, Ga., farm to the Peachtree Road Farmers Market, and it did not look promising. On a rainy Saturday, they were the only vendors there without a tent. Yet that did not stop a steady stream of customers eager to buy their organic beans, heirloom tomatoes and Brussels sprouts from descending on their tables, cash in hand. "I was in the wine business, which in the course of the last two years has tanked," Andrew Norman says. "The only other skill I have is farming, and we had to do something to pay our mortgage." The Normans had sold their produce to Atlanta-area restaurants but never directly to the public. "It was a lot of fun," Norman says, adding he made about $500 on that rain-soaked day. Although farmers are struggling during the economic downturn, neighborhood markets are booming. Peachtree Road is one of at least three dozen such markets in the Atlanta...