Lightning crackled and sparked. Thunder rumbled. But those veggie lovers showed up anyway.

Completely ignoring a sometimes-driving, often-pouring rain, Doug Walton and his all-volunteer crew fired up a massive charcoal grill Saturday morning for this year’s Grill Crazy, part of the Muskogee Farmers Market.

“It’s really just a chance to show people how easy it is to grill vegetables and fruit, too,” he said.

The guys worked assembly-line fashion, some washing vegetables, then cutting, marinating and eventually handing them off to Walton and the other grill masters, who seared and smoked to perfection a variety of vegetables. Squash, onions, corn, green beans and even one fruit — tomatoes — were on the menu.

A festive spirit enveloped the entire market, which takes place at 8 a.m. every Wednesday and Saturday in the north parking lot of the Muskogee Civic Assembly Center.

Shaking off umbrellas and fluffing hair, person after person walked up to the serving table, helping themselves to the delectable fare, a veritable rainbow of veggies, from green tomatoes to green beans, yellow squash to corn.

Deloris Church, a Fort Gibson resident, loved all the veggies, she said.

“I don’t really have a preference,” she said. “They’re all good.”

An occasional griller, she buys fruits and vegetables at the market rather than trying to grow them, she said.

All items grilled Saturday were donated by market vendors, Walton said, adding that doing so drives their business, making such donations a good investment.

Kendall Coppin, a Webbers Falls grower, said he told Walton and crew to take all the corn they wanted.

“Everyone in the market works together,” he said. “You make a lot of friends here at the market.”

Besides corn, Coppin and his wife, Marla, along with other family members, also grow watermelon and cantaloupe, he said. Friday night, in preparation for the market, he and his family were up past midnight picking corn.

Marla Coppin said there is money to be made in the business, but every penny is hard-earned, as the work begins in March and doesn’t stop until October.

She, too, likes to grill vegetables, recently doing so with corn, onions and new potatoes, she said.