“Anything that is as close to the way God meant it to be is the best for you,” the market master at the first ever Denison Farmers' Market, Craig Floyd, said last Sunday.

Held in a field below the Denison Homestead on Pequotsepos Road, the market attracted a surprising crowd of people, many driving home from church.

Alongside Footsteps Farm of Stonington, which Floyd owns, was Studio Farm Products of North Stonington, Country Corners of Griswold, Great Harvest Bread of Groton and 18th Century Purity Farm of Moosup.

Woodland Farm and Killam & Bassette Farmstead should be selling next week.

Floyd, a tall man with bushy hair and multiple earrings in each ear, said he wants to find vendors for seafood, lamb and cheese. Anyone interested should contact him.

His son, Kevin, 13, sat underneath a tent selling their locally raised chickens all afternoon, some that were alive less than 24 hours before. They sold five in the first 30 minutes.

“There are so many misnomers on labels in the supermarket that people don't know what they're putting into their mouths,” Floyd said.

It's not just traditional farmers at the market.

From chicken and beef to honey and herbs, breads and jams, the Denison Farmers' Market rivals a grocery store.

“We want the consumer to be able to come and get anything they want,” Floyd said. “The point is we're trying to give the farmers a place to sell their stuff and to give the public a place to buy an array of items.”

Samples of apple butter from 18th Century Purity Farm tasted delicious, according to Dana Semeraro of Mystic, who stopped at the market on her way home from church.

“It has a wonderful apple flavor and cinnamon spice,” she said.

“It comes from the russets we use,” the jam maker, JoAnn Desrochers, answered.

Desrochers and her husband, Paul, own Purity Farm. Jars of tomato apple butter, blueberry jam, peach butter, strawberry jam and honey, and baskets of apples and radishes and rhubarb lined the table in front of her.

“We've been waiting for the farmers' markets to start their season,” Semeraro said.

Samples of Great Harvest Bread were going fast, too.

“I'm very pleased with what we're selling, considering it's the first event and it's not sunny,” the company's co-owner, Karen Six, said.

Although Great Harvest is part of a conglomerate, Six said they grind wheat berries into wheat flour daily, and bake it into honey whole wheat, harvest white, nine-grain, and apple-raisin bread.

The great-great grandson of the founder of Country Corners farm, Bernard Laizer Jr., said that next Sunday is the last day he'll be selling bundles of strawberry plants (25 plants for $7).

In two weeks, he said, he'll have radishes, lettuce, tat soy and mustard greens.

Laizer sounded optimistic about Denison Farmers' Market.

“I came to this one because it's new and because of the area,” he said. “Some markets aren't as friendly as others. (Here) there are no price wars. We try to work with each other.”

Studio Farm Products – a farm on the acres of a former silent movie studio – sold hamburger and chuck steak, along with myriad plants and certified organic vegetables, and multiple jams and recipes.

“We readily share any of the recipes because it's good stuff,” Dot Wingate said, recommending one for rhubarb crunch. “And people share their recipes with us, too.”

Dot and her husband, Dick, started Studio Farms several years ago. Their daughter, Belinda Learned, and her husband, Ed, have extended the farm to their own North Stonington property, calling it Stoney Ledge Farms.

“It's a shame that a lot of family farms are disappearing,” Ed Learned said. “It's a way of life.”

The Denison Homestead Society hosts the market, and the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center is helping to promote it.

“It fits into the need of trying to get people to eat locally grown food,” Maggie Jones, the director of the nature center, said. “Once it really takes off it'll be a full-range farmers' market.”

“I think it's a good turnout for the first week,” Jane Preston, the president of the Denison Society, added. “And the best thing is I'm seeing everybody with something they purchased.”

Alongside the market, the renovated Denison Homestead Museum opens for tours June 18.

“It's like a picnic every weekend,” Learned said.

Denison Farmers' Market is every Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. To become a vendor, contact Market Master Craig Floyd at (860) 536-8377.