Described as one of the best openings ever, the first day of the outdoor Dane County Farmers'' Market on Saturday drew as many as 12,000 people, an unexpected surge that had many of the 100 vendors packing up early, their tables empty of produce, plants, baked goods and other homemade and locally grown products.

The crowd, which made its way in its usual slow, counterclockwise procession around the Capitol Square, swelled due to unseasonably warm temperatures in the 70s.

"It would've been nice if I'd brought more pesto," said Chris Klaeser, owner of Middlebury Hills in Barneveld, who sold out of two of his three flavors of the herb-and-oil concoctions by 10 a.m. — four hours before the market closed.

Vendor Matt Smith of Blue Valley Gardens in Blue Mounds sold all of his spinach, oyster mushrooms, watercress and honey by noon.

"You could sell rocks today," Smith said, adding with a grin, "It was a good day."

Chris Robson, co-owner of Chris and Lori's Bakehouse of Poynette, called the weather and the crowd it drew "unbelievable." Robson sells a variety of scones and his famous Cow Cookies — black and white frosted sugar cookies shaped like Holsteins.

"This is one of the best opening days we've ever had," Robson said. Previous openings have featured mid-April rain, wind and snow, he remembered.

The market runs year-round, moving indoors to the Monona Terrace Convention Center in late fall and the Madison Senior Center in the winter. Some vendors also sell goods on Wednesdays in front of the City-County Building in Madison — part of the nearly two dozen markets that have opened at other locations in Madison and its surrounding communities since the Dane County market launched in 1972.

But it's the Saturday market — which runs from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. until Nov. 7 — for which Madison is famous.

 Billed as the largest producer only market in the country, it includes 160 vendors at the peak of the growing season, said Larry Johnson, manager of the Dane County Farmers' Market. He said that Saturday's opening of the outdoor market was probably the biggest he'd seen in seven years as manager.

Jim and Carol Laedtke were there to continue a tradition they started while in college at UW-Madison. The Laedtkes, of Brookfield, brought along their five children, including Alex, a sophomore at the university and Tori, a Waukesha North High School student who will be attending UW-Madison in the fall.

"We love the Capitol. We love State Street," Carol Laedtke said. "We want to share this with the kids. This is where we started."

In addition to watching the myriad people who turned out, the Laedtkes were on a quest to find cheese, cinnamon rolls and honey sticks. Jim Laedtke said he was after cheaper quarry: "Samples."

And the attendant Farmers' Market activists were out as well, including those advocating gay rights and an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two young men chatted amiably as they held a seven-foot banner on the Capitol lawn featuring a near life-size image of Jesus.

As people walked nearly shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalk, it was impossible not to eavesdrop on conversations, including this exchange, likely only in Wisconsin: "Is it weird that I put cheese in my back pocket?" one young woman said to another. "No," the other replied, "that's where I'd put it."