If you've been treating this week as the last call for Beaverdale's Tuesday market, you're not wrong. But if you assumed that meant farmers market season in Des Moines was winding down everywhere at the same pace, you're overlooking eight more Saturdays that the bigger market downtown still has left.
The Beaverdale Farmers Market and the Downtown Farmers' Market both call Des Moines home, sit less than five miles apart, and close their seasons almost two months out of sync with each other. One is finishing this week. The other runs all the way through Halloween weekend. Knowing which is which changes how you plan the rest of your fall.
The Tuesday Market That's Already Closing
Beaverdale's market has moved four times since it started in 2012, from Beaverdale Park on Adams Avenue, to a stretch of Beaver Avenue next to Boesen the Florist, to Urbandale Avenue, and now to its current spot in the west parking lot at Franklin Junior High on Franklin Avenue. Each move tracked the market's growth, and it now draws more than 40 vendors every Tuesday from 4 to 7 p.m.
That run ends this week. Market listings describe the close as the second week of September, which lands the final Tuesday on September 8, tomorrow on the calendar as of this writing. If Tuesday evenings at Franklin Junior High have been part of your week since June, this is your last stop before next summer.
That's a real loss for anyone who built a routine around it. Beaverdale's market is neighborhood-scaled on purpose, small enough that you recognize the same vendors selling sweet corn and honey week after week, with plenty of parking and none of the crowd management that comes with a market ten times its size. It's not a smaller version of downtown's market. It's a different kind of Tuesday.
Why Downtown Keeps Going Into Halloween Weekend
The Downtown Farmers' Market, running through the Historic Court District along Court Avenue from Fifth Street to Water Street, is in its 51st season this year and isn't closing until October 31. That's nearly eight weeks past Beaverdale's finish line, and it comes with more than 300 vendors on a given Saturday, a scale that makes it one of the largest markets in the Midwest.
The schedule does shift as the calendar turns. Through September, the market runs its usual 7 a.m. to noon window. Starting in October, that start time pushes back an hour, opening at 8 a.m. and closing at noon, likely a nod to later sunrises and cooler mornings rather than any drop in vendor turnout.
Here's how the two markets actually stack up against each other this fall:
| Beaverdale Farmers Market | Downtown Farmers' Market | |
|---|---|---|
| Day | Tuesday | Saturday |
| Hours | 4 to 7 p.m. | 7 a.m.–noon (8 a.m.–noon in October) |
| Season closes | September 8 | October 31 |
| Location | Franklin Junior High west lot, Franklin Avenue | Court Avenue, Fifth Street to Water Street |
| Approximate vendor count | 40+ | 300+ |
The gap matters less as a trivia point and more as a planning problem. If Beaverdale has been your grocery run, you have two options for the next eight weeks: drive further for your Saturday produce, or accept that your Tuesday routine is done until next June.
This Year's Parking Rules Aren't Last Year's
If downtown becomes your fallback for the rest of the season, don't assume the parking works the way it did last year. Two things changed for 2026. The city added metered parking to the bridges over the Des Moines River, a stretch that used to be a reliable free option for market regulars. And the parking garage long associated with the old Wells Fargo building downtown is now privately owned and charges for parking, closing off another spot that used to cost nothing on a Saturday morning.
The workaround is that four city-owned garages still drop to a flat $5 during market hours, which is a meaningful discount from their normal rates:
- Third and Court parking garage
- Fourth and Grand parking garage
- Fifth and Walnut parking garage
- Eighth and Mulberry parking garage
There's also a paid option inside the Terrus Real Estate Group ramp at the southeast corner of Second and Court avenues, useful if the four city garages are already full by the time you arrive, which happens more often as the market gets closer to its 10 a.m. peak.
None of this makes downtown harder to get to. It just means the free-parking habits that worked in past seasons don't automatically apply this year, and showing up expecting to park on the bridge for nothing is going to end in a citation instead of a bargain.
What This Means for the Rest of Your Fall
The practical takeaway is simple even if the logistics aren't. Des Moines doesn't have one farmers market season, it has at least two overlapping ones that close on different clocks. Beaverdale's neighborhood-scale Tuesday market is finishing up right now, while the downtown market, with ten times the vendor count and nearly two more months on its calendar, is just entering its cooler-weather stretch with a later start time and a different parking map than the one you might remember from July.
If you've never made it downtown because Beaverdale was close enough and easy enough, this is the moment the calculation changes. The market itself isn't smaller in the fall, it's the same 300-plus vendors along the same twelve blocks of Court Avenue. What's different is what you'll pay to park while you're there.
This is exactly the kind of detail that separates a neighborhood you've lived in for years from one you're still getting to know: the small scheduling quirks, the parking garage that used to be free and isn't anymore, the market that closes in September while its bigger sibling keeps going until Halloween. It's the same instinct that matters when you're deciding where to put down roots in the first place, whether that's staying close to a favorite Tuesday market or picking a street where a Saturday walk downtown is part of the plan.
If any of that has you thinking about what's next for where you live in Des Moines, the Ingrid Williams Real Estate Team knows these neighborhoods block by block, not just by median price. Start Your Next Move whenever you're ready.
