This year's markets

19 years ago

I'm amazed at how well attended this years market is so far. We do 3 in our home town of Fort Collins & one in another town. Not all have opened yet, but my Sunday market has been going since early MAy & it's up a lot. I can only hope the others follow suite.

I've also been amazed at how willing many people are to try new things....like pea shoots, baby beets, baby fennel. Everyone keeps asking when the basil will be in. It's been an unusually cool spring - we only hit the high 90's once & it's even rained enough to count.

Perennial plants haven't sold as well as usual, but the herb & veggie starts were great.

I guess my question is: How are things in YOUR neck of the woods? It would be interesting to make a map of where we all sell & keep trends & other data. If enough folks want to respond to this over the season, I'd be willing to do the work & post it in the winter. I think I just have a deep seated love for collecting data.

Sue

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Comments (9)

Tom1953
19 years ago
Hello Sue:
We opened our market for the first time this year for Mothers' Day. We only sold plants and shrubs. Another vendor brought some of her organic seedlings. An Amish family came with baked goods. We all did fairly well.
Our market is in Conneaut Ohio, it was the only market up till this year in our county.
I hope you do make a map it would be interesting to see where everyone is from.
Hope you have a good season.
Tom
ohiorganic
19 years ago
We have a new market in Oxford, OH and it has been doing gangbusters since it opened on May 1.

This is this market's fist year, it replaces another market that got kicked off it's location and had to move. So last November a committee was formed to see where the market could move. there was a split in the committee. One group wanted to go to the local High School (on the edge of town) and the other group wanted to go into the center of the central business district (Uptown). I am in the latter group. So we worked hard with the city and state getting this market set up and it has gone well ever since.

I have never been able to sell out of 80% to 90% of what we bring every single week. But here this is a regular occurance. We had to drop our CSA because we simply didn't grow enough food to supply all our markets. it is nice to come home and have to put away about 15 pounds of food instead of most of what you brought.

We have several hoophouses and these have allowed us to have early strawberries (8 weeks early and they always sell out) tomatoes, zucchinis, green beans, cucumbers (which have walked off the table at a buck each) and melons. We have had horrible flooding (I would MUCH rather have drought than too much rain) which has ruined beets, carrots, a lot of garlic (but not the majority), late melons, green beans, dried beans and a few other things. we cope by doing succession planting-if one planting fails another will work.

For years I have been associated with markets that had half a@@ management and this markets have had bed sales. Now I am with a market with good management and a lot of community participation and that makes all the difference in the world. A healthy vital FM is a joy to go to.

Lucy
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Tom1953
19 years ago
Lucy: How did the state help you with your market?
Tom
ohiorganic
19 years ago
The State didn't help a bit. but they did add a nice layer of rules and regulations to the market, many of them contridictory or just outright confusing.
thumbfarmerlady
19 years ago
New co market master here, to a samll but growing market inthe thumb of michigan. So far we have 8 to 12 booths each sat 8-2 we have made a move just up the road due to mud and have found a very nice dry and pleasent home. It's on a lawn of our towns grain mill, edging a park. We're a "new" concept here so it's a lot of educating the public but we have droves of suberinites who have moved out here to live in the "country" so we will be doing direct advertizing to all the subs around here.

Baked goods, shrubs and trees, herbs (me)potted and fresh, cut flowers just arrived, Jerky, hormone free pork, greens
along w/ artists and hancrafters. rave reviews so far.

Michigan is slow growing for vegies this year.
We are constantly looking for ways to advertize and get the word out.
Jeanne_in_Idaho
19 years ago
I have the wonderful luck to be a member of a 20-plus-year-old market that is still growing, in both customers and merchants. Even so, on the busiest summer weekends some of the day vendors get turned away for lack of booth space. Customer attendance keeps growing, although to my eye, this year's customers seem like the same number as last year's (but that's a great number!). I have to hand it to our Marketing committee. They do a great job. Some of the members advertise separately also.

We have quite a few produce vendors, several of them certified organic, a couple of them really big; two of those sell some cut flowers also. There are some smaller, non-certified organic produce vendors also. Three bakeries, two dedicated cut-flower sellers, four big and several smaller plant sellers, egg, jerky and meat sellers, a guy selling alpaca poop (really!), a worm compost seller, and some crafters. Add to that the day vendors selling berries or other produce in season, and the many day vendor crafters. We follow the market rule that we can only sell what we grew, gathered, or made ourselves, so it's a real farmer's and crafter's market, no resale at all.

We open the day before Mother's Day and close in late October.

Jeanne
pattimelt
19 years ago
What type of baked goods sell for you? And the prices? I sold out of every loaf of zucchini bread I brought within an hour last week. They were the mini loaves and had a price of $2.50 each. Would like more of a selection.
Thanks, Patti
huisjen
19 years ago
We sell granola at $3.75 for a 14 oz. bag, gingerbread at $4.50 for 1/4 of a 9x13 pan, and sandwich bread at $4.00 a 9x5 loaf. The sandwich bread is interesting... there are between one and three other (prfessional) bakers at the market every week, but I have developed a small following for my very substantial homemade bread. You can get a light, fluffy loaf anywhere...

Katey
thumbfarmerlady
19 years ago
Here in MI it's proven to be quite a job getting a kitchen for value added products.

We do offer baked goods for sale but as a fund raiser for our market at this point.

T

This year's markets

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Tom1953

ohiorganic

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