Greetings from the far Pacific Northwest, where the winters are wet and the grass gets greener than in spring. But this Saturday Morning Garden Blog is not about winter rain. It's about summer and the bountiful harvest most of us will be drawing from in our Thanksgiving feasts coming up shortly. That harvest gets brought to you all summer long in local Farmers Markets, and that's what this blog entry is about.
Our harvest story started long ago and far away. After living in China 27 years, my wife and I "retired" to what had been part of an old cattle farm in Washington state. The much larger farm had been broken up into 10 acre parcels. We built a highly energy efficient house, a workshop, and a small greenhouse on the 10 acres we bought and started planting fruit trees, hardy kiwi, table grapes, blueberries, raspberries and strawberries. While the fruit trees and vines were maturing (hardy kiwi takes 4 years to get a small first crop, for example), we planted a vegetable garden.
The farming started in 2017, so by January 2020 we felt confident enough in our growing skills and in the vines and trees starting to put out fruit to start up a "social purpose" company. This is Washington state's version of a B-corp type corporation, wherein the owners set metrics besides profit alone. Our metric is to grow organic "low carbon" produce for the local market.
We've done better at meeting that metric than making a profit so far, that's for sure!
Our exquisite sense of timing in starting up a company ran headlong into COVID-19 shutting down every farmers market (and much else) in the county and state. So we did what sales we could in 2020 from the farm gate, and a bit in wholesale to a farm that had a CSA list.
In January 2021 our nearest local farmers market wanted to open again, but so many vendors from 2019 had dropped out, gone out of business or given up that we couldn't even form the minimum five member board needed. Only one board member from before the COVID break was willing to serve. Three other former vendors who weren't selling in 2021 agreed basically to meet the legal obligation for five members. That put the only two potential actual new vendors on the spot: one must join the board or both had to go to another farmers market that might have survived.
I raised my hand, became the board Treasurer and, for most of the 17 Saturday meets, the market manager. In late March 2021, there were only two active vendors. After scrambling for new vendors, begging, advertising, and calling around, seven vendors were ready to reopen for the first market in June. That's down from 18 market vendors in 2019.
So with a lot of trepidation we opened the season with our 7 tents occupying a space that could hold 20 and more with ease. We set out our banners, hung out the signs, and watched in shock as about 400 people streamed through our very small market from 10am to 2pm, and set an all time record for farmers market sales in that town.
They did it again the next week, but this time I counted the visitors instead of roughly estimating, with 409 people not counting babes in arms. And we set another record the second week in sales by nearly matching the total from the first week. Within a few more weeks, as word got out that folks were supporting their local farmers market, other vendors starting joining, and the small town decided to hold its annual Farmers Day parade again, for the first time since 2019. On that parade day, 11 vendors set up tents and 816 people came through the market.
We doubled the previous all time record in sales for any of the seven years the market had existed. By end of season, the farmers market logged over 6,200 visitors, nearly doubled any previous year's sales totals for the whole season, and had 18 vendors on the roster. To say the board members felt good about our supporters and vendors very much underestimates our feelings. My wife and I even broke out some Washington state wine to celebrate.
We ended up with six produce vendors alone (we were the main fruit vendors at the market though we did have a blueberry-only vendor for five weeks of their season) as well as vendors for local honey, photography, pottery, sweet and savory waffles, soaps and bath bombs, fine cutlery and hunting knives, aprons and sewn arts, flowers, wooden carved pots and birdhouses, local beef, sweets, flower and vegetable sets and even several weeks with live music.
All of the products were made or grown locally in the county. Most of the craft products were handmade by the vendors themselves or completed by the vendors (our knife maker and wooden crafts folks imported various woods they then worked into their pieces, but a lot of their wood was from local sources). Our produce sellers had fruits and vegetables much fresher than what was available in the stores, usually priced well below store prices, almost all organically grown, and all had much smaller carbon footprints than stuff shipped in from far away.
Below are some of the fruits and vegetables produced on our farm and sold at the farmers market over the season. In the last photo, you can see the cooler with our first sales of table grapes. We ended up harvesting over 150 pounds of table grapes and sold nearly a hundred pounds at the market and to a friend's CSA. The rest, we ate and made into really scrumptious raisins.
What we couldn't sell, eat or can or freeze or dehydrate for ourselves we donated to the local food bank, as did several other produce vendors at the market.
We feasted one evening on our strawberries, a blueberry pie (from our blueberries) and sun kissed, tree ripened apricots from our trees. Some other farmer made the wine and cheese, though. The bread was from a local small entrepreneur bakery.
I hope you were able to go to a local farmers market this summer and enjoy the fruits and vegetables grown near you. Just look up "farmers markets near me" on your favorite map app if you don't know where one is being held. When you buy locally at one of these markets you're not just boosting the local economy and supporting local farmers, which is a good thing for food security, but you're also shrinking your carbon output. And, AND, AND you get to eat fantastically tasty fresh highly nutritious food.
So did you visit a farmers market this summer? What did you find there?
And if you did shop at a farmers market, thank you so much! You’re one who is making a difference in reducing carbon while enjoying the doing. This is one way to change things without giving up something you enjoy (like food).