Heavily overcast, downright chilly, with rain threatening at any moment…still, a great first day at the market! In all the excitement, I forgot to take a picture of the stand as it was when we started, it looked good for a tiny spread of three trays… We sold out of mesclun and spinach in a couple of hours, while the Jerusalem artichoke, a veg that like as not had NEVER before been seen at this market, lasted all day but turned out to be a bit of a hit, with maybe 10lbs (4.5kg) sold! A bit of sage, thyme, oregano and chives rounded things out. This early in the season, the vendors were almost all crafts and prepared stuff—baked goods, cheese curd, maple syrup,…—and crafts, plus bedding plants and some fresh produce: storage potatoes, rhubarb, one stand with wild leek… And the traffic wasn’t huge, no surprise, especially with the weather. BUT, chatting with other vendors and regular customers for the first time after the winter was excellent! Really, connecting with people through fresh food at the farmers’ market makes tiny farming all make sense to me…
Sounds great… I can’t wait to move to our new place and get our gardens started… and for our new Farmer’s Market to get organized!
Your blog is very inspiring… thanks!
Prairie Dreams
Adventures in Food
Prairie Visions
Our town is finally getting its own farmer’s market. Our surrounding towns already have them. Sadly none of them start until mid June.
Mike,
Our first market was this past Saturday. The weather here has been very rainy and unseasonably cold. Yesterday felt like February or March. Saturday was the exception, beautiful skies and pleasant temps. The fruit and veg vendors did not come as there is just not enough product. These guys are big acreage. Me, I had some mustard greens, green garlic, pea tendrils and a few radishes. Maybe this week I will have lettuce mix. What do the chokes taste like……….and don’t say chicken ha ha.
Julie
Ours hasn’t started yet so I enjoyed your market beginning. I hope we have some different items this year as well.
The farmer’s market don’t open here until June and since we are moving in July we won’t get to take much advantage of it but I’m still excited to check it out. I’ve already looked on localharvest.org to find the farmer’s markets near lancaster, pa where we are moving to. In fact the prevalence of markets was one of the reasons we chose to move there.
Mike,
You’ve been tagged by http://steedfarm.blogspot.com/
Hop over to my blog and take a look.
Congratulations on your first market day!
I’m just starting to notice Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) since I am now pulling them out of may community garden as a weed. My current project is to transplant them into my wild flower garden next to my house. I’m glad they sold well for you.
Our market starts in a few weeks (June 12). Its a small market with maybe 15 vendors, mostly veggies. Your market sounds great!