I’m holding my breath – can you tell? We’ve survived the beginning of school
without the precipitous drop in sales that we have always experienced in the
past. The next hurdle is Labor Day weekend, another date that has signaled a steep
drop in customer attendance.
Those drops are always hard on our vendors’ bottom line, but
this year they could be even more critical than usual. Produce at the market
doesn’t really dwindle dramatically until freezing weather arrives, though the
type of produce changes. Typically in September we still see summer produce
like tomatoes coming in and add the cool weather crops like spinach, peas and
lettuce. The green beans flood in along with the winter squash – we’re
expecting a lot of butternut, acorn and spaghetti squash this year. But because
the summer harvest is running two to three weeks late, we’ll see a big supply
of peaches, peppers and other crops that normally start to fade out next month.
That means we need to hold onto our summertime crowds. Let’s consider it a
bonus time for our customers who had to wait weeks longer than usual for their
favorite crops to mature.
And now that I think of it, why not just stay in the market
habit all year long. Our winter market is well-established and growing. Our
farmers are already planting their high tunnels with tomatoes, spinach,
cauliflower, broccoli, onions, carrots and other tasty treats to sell during
the winter. We now have more than ten high tunnels scheduled for winter
production. And we have farmers who are also planting for winter production in
the fields, using row cover and crops that weather the cold well like turnips
and beets.
For those of you who have shopped at the Clubhouse during the
Winter Market, you may wonder where we’re going to put all these farmers and
their produce. Well, the answer is, right at the pavilion. One of Chuck Surface’s
last projects was to write a grant to buy sidings for the pavilion and portable
heaters. Chuck was a real friend of the
market, as well as the city’s director of economic development. Tom Reeder took over the project after Chuck’s
death and designed and ordered the roll-down sidings. They will allow us to use
as much of the pavilion as we need and we expect to use at least half of it. In
other words, we expect to more than double our Winter Market this year. I’d like
to add a Christmas market season this year too, a place where folks can buy
locally crafted gifts. It would be held during the Winter Markets, I’m thinking
from mid-October through mid-December. Wouldn’t it be fun to have some church
choirs singing carols after Thanksgiving?
If you have ideas or suggestions, let me know – 417 483-8139.
Tom Lewis, of Broken Wire Ranch, is planning to bring loads of
Big Jim peppers to the market today and tomorrow. They are a mild hot pepper,
perfect for stuffing. I see a lot of folks having them roasted in the Broken
Wire roaster. Tom will also have his other specialty peppers, as well as his
pretty bell peppers.
We welcome a new musician to the market today – Marshall Mitchell.
He was recommended by one of our regulars, William Adkins. They’re both from
Bella Vista, though Marshall does mostly cowboy music. Should be fun.
Granny Shaffer’s at the Market will serve homestyle chicken and
noodles, chicken salad sandwiches, and a fruit plate.
Extension is back and will demonstrate a super easy Butternut
Squash recipe.
Tomorrow, the Webb City High School Band Boosters will serve
breakfast from 9 to 11. It features biscuits and gravy, sausage and farm-fresh
eggs cooked to order. I’m really pleased to be offering those farm-fresh eggs. We’d
had such a short supply earlier in the year that our customers were buying them
all, but now we have a good supply, especially on Saturdays – enough for our
customers and the market, too.
The Red Bridge Trio will perform and Market Lady Trish Reed
will demonstrate and give samples of Watermelon Refresco.
Tuesday Gospel Strings plays and Granny Shaffer’s at the Market
serves lunch.
I want to say thank you to the Webb City Parks Department for
quick action. I noticed on Tuesday that there were car tracks coming off the
alley on the east of the pavilion and a new post on the pavilion. Monday morning
the park workers found a post had been knocked out, apparently by a driver who
had neglected to leave a note. They jacked up the side a bit, set in a new post,
cemented it in and had it all ready for us in one day. Impressive.
And kudos to our volunteer golf cart driver. De Hunt drives on
Fridays and Saturdays for the first hour or so of market when cars are still parking
a considerable distance from the pavilion. I try to drive on Tuesdays if the
parking lot is full so I know how important the task is. I always have several
passengers who tell me that they just couldn’t come to the market if the cart
was not there. They are physically unable to walk a distance and certainly unable
to carry a watermelon and all their other purchases. This week, De told me that
in his last nine days of driving he had 355 passengers, an average of about 40
per day with 62 being the biggest day. So thank you, De, for making this
service possible. And thank you Perry family for buying us new cart batteries
this year. The market blooms and prospers because of the people and
organizations that play a part.
