Farmers Market season is here

Bright and early tomorrow morning, at 6 a.m. to be exact, Warren County’s Farmers Market will be ready to begin another year of plants, flowers, fun and food, a wide variety of fresh and delicious food that comes mostly in the form of home-grown produce offered for sale by people from around the region.

According to Farmers Market director Mary Cantrell, the market will be open Saturday from 6 a.m. to noon all April.

‘In May we will be open on Wednesdays and Saturdays, again from 6 a.m. to noon,’ Cantrell said. ‘Then in June, we’re going to also open on Fridays from noon until about 5 p.m. or 5:30, something like that.’

Cantrell says last year was a bit slow, since the market is dependent on the growing season, which was affected by the drought.

‘It should be better because we’ve had more rain,’ Cantrell said. ‘That’s going to help a lot. Last year’s drought really hurt us. A lot of the growers had to irrigate and the fruit was not quite as good simply because of the growing conditions. But this year we think everything will be very good.’

Early season food should be around in abundance for opening day, Cantrell predicts.

‘On the market there should be lettuce, onions, radishes and probably some other early crops,’ Cantrell said. ‘We have a lot of people growing produce in greenhouses.

‘John Brown will be there with his gourmet lettuce,’ Cantrell said. ‘Randy Roller is planning to be there with his barbecue. And later on in the season, we have a vendor who is growing Shitakke mushrooms. We’re really expanding our choice of produce.’

Cantrell says the number of vendors will grow as the season moves on.

‘To begin with we’ll have probably 10 to 14 vendors this Saturday,’ Cantrell said. ‘Because there aren’t a lot of crops available. But we will have a lot of plants, garden plants, canned goods, and of course Carolyn Bickford will be there with her good sourdough bread. We’ll have cakes and pies, cookies and candy.’

As the season progresses, more and more items will be added, including tomatoes grown by the Mennonites.

‘One thing we love about the Mennonites is they plant their tomatoes out in the field and then build the greenhouses around them,’ Cantrell said. ‘So we have tomatoes in May, good-tasting garden tomatoes, which is wonderful.

‘In addition to Warren County, we have vendors from Altamont, Smithville, Sparta, Coffee County,’ Cantrell said. ‘So we have them from a little bit of everywhere. For the season, I’ve already got 31 vendors signed up,’ Cantrell added. In 2007 we had, I think, 87 vendors during the year, and that was on a bad year. We’ll have more this year since it should be a better growing season.’

Those interested in becoming a vendor this year should contact Cantrell via cellphone at 235-1542 for more information.