NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: UPPER WEST SIDE -- UPDATE; A Summer Bereft of Farmers, and Zinnias, at Verdi Square

Bernadette and Walter Kowalski came from different worlds; she sold mushrooms, and he sold flowers. But they met at an open-air market in New York seven years ago and Bernadette gave up fungus for a bouquet.

Every Saturday morning last summer, the couple rose at 3 a.m., loaded their truck and drove from their Catskill, N.Y., farm to Broadway and 72nd Street. At 7 a.m., they set up their flower cart at the Verdi Square Greenmarket, where they sold 17 varieties of sunflowers, zinnias, eucalyptus and lavender.

But they and many farmers like them will not be back this summer. The four-year-old Greenmarket did not open as scheduled in April because of traffic congestion cause by the renovation of the 72nd Street subway station, and it will not open this summer. The change is affecting up to two dozen farmers and the 2,500 to 5,000 people who visited the market on a typical Saturday.

Greenmarket, which runs about 30 farmers' markets in the city, is trying to relocate the Verdi Square farmers but has found new locations for only about half of those displaced. And even those who may be relocated fear that they will have trouble recouping the income and customers they depended on.

''I will miss it terribly for reasons other than financial,'' Mrs. Kowalski said. ''I was very fond of that market because we were able to have an exchange with a whole group of people who would bring their kids out and who we got to know pretty well. I can think of a number of people I know by their first names that I won't see.''

Joel Patraker, assistant director of Greenmarket, said the city had asked the Verdi Square market to consider moving to another location.

But, he said, ''We've looked for alternative sites for a year. You need a lot of different things to make a site successful, and there are not a lot of open spaces in New York, period.''

NINA SIEGAL