You won’t want to miss tomorrow’s market – Amos Apiaries will be there with local raw honey.
Debbie Fedie and Eric Osen of the Ozark Gateway Master Gardeners will host a kids gardening table. Children can plant a fingerling potato in a peat pot which they can grow inside and watch sprout and then plant, pot and all, in their garden or a large pot.
Market Dude Frank Reiter is making his Guinness Lamb Stew and sampling it with Irish Soda Bread. He was scheduled for last week but couldn’t make it, so lucky for us, we’ll still be wearin’ the green tomorrow.
Scott Springer makes his market debut with acoustic guitar tomorrow. Mabel is serving a biscuit and gravy for $3.
We expect six farms, including Xiong Farms who had leeks the last time they came. There’ll be loads of greens and other good produce. Cottage Small is back with freshly roasted coffee beans and our happy hens have been busy laying eggs – we’ll have over 100 dozen for sale. It’s going to be another fine market.
I love working with the farmers market. I love that our new manager is always willing, almost always available and has a pickup! That sure came in handy when Wednesday morning the city manager mentioned it would be nice if the market moved its stuff out of the public works building. Over a year ago, the Quonset hut near the market had to be taken down to make room for the kitchen and city workers were kind enough to move the things we don’t use regularly over to the public works building. We were way overdue getting our things back to the market and how nice that our manager, David Hill, was available that very day to help me relocate it. What a pleasure to send an email within 6 hours saying mission accomplished.
Then Thursday we located a gently used commercial dishwasher near Carthage. The young man selling it was a former Webb Citian and perked right up at the market’s name. He cut the price by 70% because it was for the market. By evening it was relocated by David’s truck and in the kitchen ready to be hooked up.
Meanwhile I received an email from a friend who thought he might have located some funding for the Free Kids Meal which we hope to serve on Tuesdays and Thursdays when school is out.
Last Friday we had our seed starting workshop at the market’s education center south of Rocky Comfort. The English session was good, but the Hmong session was even better. Our small structure was jam packed with our Hmong farmers who were so interested that they asked if next year we could begin earlier and have a weekly workshop on seed starting and caring for young plants. It is so satisfying to work with farmers who want to improve their skills and are willing to put in the time and effort to do so.
I am a big believer in sharing the joy so I want to extend an invitation to you to be part of the market. We will soon be training new volunteersand with all the expansion at the market this year, we’ll have lots of opportunities whether working with the kids garden, helping at the information table, volunteering at the free kids supper or any number of other projects. You can download a volunteer application at webbcityfarmersmarket.com or stop by the information table.
Our new tent is up by the soccer fields ready for the park’s egg hunts tomorrow. It’s white and yellow and going to look great when it is set up at the pavilion for the free kids meal in late May. What a great relationship we have with the park. Their workers will put up and take down the tent (saving us hundreds of dollars in set up charges) and we make it available for the hunt (saving them hundreds of dollars in tent rental fees). Everyone wins. Especially the kids. The schedule for the egg hunt tomorrow is:
1 pm – kids up to 4 years old
1:30 – kids from 4 to 6 years old
2 – kids with special needs
2:30 – kids 7 years old and up
See you in the park!
