By Matthew Goad and Armen Terjimanian

Red and gold danced as the sun hit the Berkshire Berries jams and jellies at the farmers market at 77th Street and Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side, but that’s not what brought Kathy Novak to the table on this Sunday afternoon.

David Graves had a special order for her tucked under a crate – fresh blue-green eggs.

His main business at Berkshire Berries in Becket, Mass., is producing jams, jellies, honey and maple syrup, but he brings 10-15 blue eggs from his Araucana/Americana hens to the markets, as well.

Novak, who lives on Riverside Drive near the market, has a standing order for a dozen of Graves’ eggs each week. By the afternoon he had only the dozen that he was saving for Novak left.

“We have a personal relationship with Dave,” she said. “I call him if I can’t make it.”

But she does get to the market, part of New York City’s Greenmarket System, almost every Sunday. Greenmarket is a network of 47 outdoor farmers markets in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island that is run by the Council on the Environment of New York City. The markets provide shoppers with produce brought that day from regional farms.

“I like knowing that I’m the first line of contact,” said Novak, who paid $7 for a dozen of the unusual eggs. She likes the bright yellow-orange of the yolks and the rich flavor. “We feel it’s worth it to know what you’re eating.”

That’s the kind of relationship between customer and farmer – and customer and food – that Greenmarket was created for. Small farmers get access to the largest population center in the United States, and the people of New York City get a place to buy food straight from the farm.

“The money goes directly to the farmer,” said Gabrielle Langholtz, publicity director of Greenmarket.

Greenmarket was started in July 1976 as one farmers market at Union Square by Barry Benepe, the father of New York City Parks and Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe. The elder Benepe saw smaller upstate farms going out of business as grocery stores increasingly relied on larger farms farther from the city for most of what they sold.

“It was really hard to recruit farmers because they were scared of the city,” Langholtz said of the first market. “Everyone had told them they would get mugged.”

But shoppers reacted like they were at a sale at Bloomingdale’s, Langholtz said, rushing to snap up everything. The once-reluctant farmers were ready to come back the next day.

Greenmarket now has 23 markets operating year-round, with the other 24 closing for winter. About 180 vendors participate in the markets. In September, Greenmarket’s busiest season, the Union Square location – the first and still the largest – has drawn as many as 60,000 visitors in one day, Langholtz said.

Courtney Gable, who visits the Greenmarket weekly, buys garlic jelly for her parents. PHOTO: Matthew Goad

At the Union Square market on a Saturday morning customers lined up to buy fresh eggs from Knoll Crest Farms of Clinton Corners, N.Y., before the market opened at 8 a.m.

“I’ve been here at 7:30 in the morning when it was zero,” said Gail Pierres, who lives near Union Square, “and if you’re not in line by 7:30, forget it.”

Pierres comes to the market once a week, she said. She likes getting fresh food, but she also likes the idea that she's supporting farmers from the region.

Besides providing New York City with farm-fresh food, Greenmarket also offers some products the average market wouldn’t. One vendor at Union Square was selling fresh buffalo meat and offered a Super Bowl special for those Greenmarket patrons who were looking to plan a feast for the big game.

More than 120 varieties of apples are sold at the markets, Langholtz said, many of them varieties that farmers probably wouldn’t grow if the only place to sell them was the grocery store.

“For the city kid, or maybe the city adult,” Langholtz said, “it’s a good way to see the connection to the seasons and the Earth in which we live.”