At 8:30 on a Saturday morning, two operations open at the Chappaqua Train Station. The Chappaqua Farmers Market sets up for its 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. run. At the first left off South Greeley Avenue, volunteers open the Take It or Leave It Shed, the free reuse "shop" the Town of New Castle calls TIOLI, where no money changes hands. Between the two sits a row of community tables that has little to do with groceries. For most of the year, all of this happens in one lot on one morning.
That changes after this month. The shed runs on Saturdays from April through October, weather permitting, and the Town calendar lists Saturday, October 31, as its last 2026 date. The market keeps going. The Town calendar still lists it at the station on November 28 and again on December 19. October 10, 17, 24 and 31 are the four Saturdays left this year when the reuse side and the food side share the lot.
Two clocks running in the same lot
The shed and the market keep different hours, and the shed's hours are the tighter ones. Drop-off at TIOLI runs 8:30 to 11 a.m., and shopping runs 9 to 11:30 a.m. The Town notes that volunteers start packing items back into the shed shortly after 11. The Town's event page prints the shopping close as "11:30pm," but the same page says shoppers are welcome until 11:30 and the shed closes before noon, so it means the morning. The market stays open until 1 p.m.
That puts the shed first in a Saturday at the station:
- 8:30 a.m. Drop-off opens at the shed and the market opens.
- 9:00 a.m. Shed shopping begins.
- 10:00 a.m. On October 3, the market's music slot had Julie Corbalis at 10.
- 11:00 a.m. Shed drop-off closes, and volunteers begin repacking soon after.
- 11:30 a.m. Shed shopping ends.
- 1:00 p.m. The market closes.
Anyone who arrives at 11:45 with a box of usable kitchenware has missed the shed but still has more than an hour of market left. After October 31, every Saturday works that way.
What the shed is built to handle
TIOLI's limits come from how little room it has. The Town's event page states the rule plainly:
"Only New Castle residents may leave things, because we have limited room in the shed and everything must be stored there if not taken by noon."
The same page says shoppers may be asked to limit their time so everyone gets a turn, that children must be supervised, and that dogs are not allowed.
The Town's longest-standing written guidance on what the shed accepts dates to an October 2020 e-newsletter. It asked for usable items in reusable condition and excluded books, clothes, cassettes, VHS tapes, electronics, chipped china, pillows, upholstered furniture, stuffed toys, car seats, cribs, bed frames, large exercise equipment, skis, and anything too heavy or bulky for one person to carry. That list is almost six years old, so ask the volunteers before loading the car. The Town's TIOLI information page is the other place to check.
The exclusions explain why the market's community tables matter. Several of them take things the shed has historically turned away.
The tables between the shed and the produce
The market's October 3 listing shows more going on at the station than vendor stalls. Under "Activities and Community Tables at the train station," it lists a Pop Up Pantry, the SNAP Matching Program, a Green Tree Textile drop-off, market food-scrap composting, Abbot House foster parent recruiting, and No Kid Hungry.
The textile drop-off is the one that fills the gap left by the shed. If clothes still can't go into TIOLI, the Green Tree table is the station's other outlet for fabric, and it is worth asking there what it accepts. Composting runs through Cultivate, which the market describes as a new hub where food, health, sustainability and community come together. Shoppers can bring market food scraps and the market's compostable cups to the Cultivate table.
That list is a weekly snapshot, not a fixed schedule. The same listing shows the shed, written as "TIOLO (weather permitting)," among those station activities. That puts the shed in the market's own Saturday lineup until the end of October.
Four Saturdays, each with its own add-on
Each of the four remaining shed Saturdays comes with something else on the calendar nearby.
| Saturday | At the station | Nearby the same weekend |
|---|---|---|
| October 10 | Market 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; TIOLI | Chapp PAC Fright Night Rewind: Hotel Transylvania at 4 p.m. and The Ring at 8 p.m.; Sunday brings Hocus Pocus at 2 p.m. and The Sixth Sense at 7 p.m. |
| October 17 | Market; TIOLI; electric vehicle show 8:30 a.m. to noon | Sunday, October 18: "Be the Light" community bonfire, 7 p.m., Recreation Field |
| October 24 | Market; TIOLI | Nothing additional found on the Town calendar |
| October 31 | Market; TIOLI's last listed date of 2026 | Downtown trick-or-treat is the day before, Friday, October 30 |
October 10. The Town's Fright Night announcement says "Sunday October 12," but its detailed calendar lists the Sunday screenings on October 11. Check chappaquapac.org before planning around the Sunday shows. The Town calendar also lists the farmers market and the shed for that Saturday morning.
October 17. This is the busiest of the four. The Town of New Castle's Sustainability Advisory Board is holding an EV show at the station from 8:30 a.m. to noon, the same morning as the market. The Board's September 23 notice invited local owners of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, especially recent models, to display their cars and talk about what owning one is like. The planned lineup named the Cadillac Lyriq, Chevy Equinox EV, Ford Mustang Mach E, Polestar 2, Rivian R2, Tesla Model 3 and Model X, and Toyota bZ4x. With the market, the shed and the car show all open in the same hours, that lot will be full. The next evening, the Town, the Committee for Mental Resilience, Horace Greeley High School SADD, the Chappaqua Library and community partners are hosting a bonfire focused on suicide prevention, mental wellness and hope. It starts at 7 p.m. at the Recreation Field, 200 S. Greeley Ave., with music, a candle lighting ceremony, a food truck and ice cream. It is free and open to all ages.
October 31. The shed's last listed Saturday falls on Halloween. The Chappaqua-Millwood Chamber of Commerce holds its annual downtown trick-or-treat the day before, Friday, October 30. Participating merchants hand out candy from noon to 2 p.m. and from 3 to 5 p.m., and no registration is required. This year Desires by Mikolay is offering a giveaway for moms, first come, first served, while supplies last.
What the station keeps after the shed closes
Once TIOLI is packed away for the year, the lot is mostly about food, and the October 3 roster shows how much food there is. The market, which says it is in its 16th year in 2026 and has more than 40 vendors, listed these that week:
- Fruit and produce: Caradonna Farm, Fresh Meadow Farm, Mead Orchards, Obercreek Farm, Orchard Hill Organics, Stars of the Meadow and Tivoli Mushrooms.
- Baked goods: Bien Cuit, Bohemian Baked, Butter + Bow, DoughCo Bagels, Heathcote Bakery, Knot of this World Pretzels, Mayfield Farm, Noble Pies, Red Barn Bakery and Wave Hill Breads.
- Fish, meat, eggs and dairy: Chaseholm Farm, Highland Hollow Beef and Kriemhild Dairy Farms, all through LeRoux Trading Co., plus Goode & Local by Don Rodrigo, Iberian Delights, Letterbox Farm, Maplebrook Farm Creamery, Pura Vida Fishery and R&M Farm. White Moustache Yogurt was marked "back next week."
- Prepared foods: Bonnes Saveurs, Grumpy Dumpling, La Trafila Pasta, Mama Hu's Sushi Bakes, Mel's Pierogies, MOMO Dressing, SMOK'D, SOUPERNATURAL, Villa Emilia Empanadas and Wild Radish.
- Drinks: Cano Coffee, Fairy Juice Bar and Manor House Sangria, plus Caradonna Farm and Mead Orchards.
- Specialty: Channery Hill Farm, Doc Pickle, The Copper Faucet Soap Company, The Lentil Hub and Wild Hive Grain Project through LeRoux Trading Co.
Vendors change from week to week, so the roster posted on chappaquafarmersmarket.org each Saturday is the one to check. The longer calendar is less clear. The Town lists the market at the station as late as December 19, but that listing doesn't say whether it's the last outdoor date or whether a winter location follows. A static page on the market's site lists a season of "May 10 to Dec 13" with no year attached, and it doesn't match the Town's December listing. The market's newsletter is the most reliable way to find out when the season ends.
Until then, the timing is simple. Through October 31, one Saturday trip to the station can cover the shed, the textile and compost tables, and the market, as long as the shed comes first. From November on, the same trip covers the market and the tables that come with it.
Fall clear-outs often turn into the first real step toward a move: deciding what stays, what goes to the shed, and what a house needs before it goes on the market. If that's where your household is this October, Harriet Libov can help you sort, stage and plan, with timing that works around your Saturdays. Let's Connect.
