Webb City Sentinel market column - 4/24/18

Things have livened up at the market. We’re open three days a week now.

On Thursday, Ghetto Taco will be back with street tacos. Rob Pommert will perform. The Fresh Ground Seed Library will give away seeds. These master gardeners can help you choose the right flower or vegetable seeds for your soil, sun and expertise level.

On Thursday we should have a good supply of local fresh produce, baked goods, lamb, beef, pork and chicken, jams and jellies, and pop corn. Fairhaven will have their wonderful rustic planters complete with flowers, as well as bird houses. Green’s Greenhouse and Garden will have tomato and herb plants, as well as produce.

On Saturday, the Carl Junctions Schools Archery Teams are serving Cooking for a Cause. Of course, that means that Fredrickson Farm will be back for the first time this year. The Kids Garden Club will plant green beans and talk about staggered planting.

Dinner's Ready is back with their frozen crockpot meals:  White Chicken Chili, Pork Tenderloin, Taco Soup, Ground Beef and Vegetable Stew, and Chicken and Noodles.

Saturday is the last day that folks can bring animals, unless they are certified service animals, into the pavilion. Starting Tuesday, we would love to have some volunteer dog attendants to take care of any dogs brought by customers unaware of the city ordinance. We hope a week or two will alert everybody to the new rule. We received several complaints last year about animals and thought we’d better make sure of our legal standing. It turned out that because we are a food establishment, we cannot have animals in the pavilion, or in the kids tent once the free meals start at the end of May. We’ve tried to alert folks to the upcoming change and everyone has been very understanding. Hopefully that kind response will continue.

Next Tuesday we’ll have street tacos again and Buffalo Creek Incident will play. Buffalo Creek plays traditional music and will seem very familiar because the group includes our long time musicians, The Sours.

And every week we’ll see more and more  produce as we move out of this unsettled weather. I heard from MoBlooms, our largest flower grower, today that he expects to be in the market in about three weeks. Of course, our hanging basket vendors are gearing up for the Mother’s Day market on May 13. That’s always one of our biggest markets of the year.

Whether the market is big and overflowing or small and easy to navigate both in the pavilion and in the parking, you will find lots of good things and good people. See you at the market – three days a week.

 

Webb City Sentinel market column - April 17, 2018

It’s finally here!  The opening of the 2018 regular market season. Next week the market will be open on Tuesday from 4 to 7, on Thursday from 11 to 2 and, of course, on Saturday from 9 to noon.

We’re starting off in a big way this Saturday. Green’s Greenhouse and Gardens is back with tomato, pepper, and herb plants. Brakers will have the first of the hanging baskets. SproutFaster is running a sale this Saturday only - buy two 30-pound bags of worm castings and get a third for half off. 

Fairhaven will have the first of their small planters and, of course, their handcrafted bluebird and wren houses. For the Birds will have their delightful birdseed wreaths. Susan’s Simple Fixin’s is back with fresh salsa.  Way Back Bakery is back with FRIED PIES!  Still Waters Farm is back, hopefully with the long anticipated asparagus.

  

Webb City High School Project Graduation serves Cooking for a Cause – scrambled eggs, hashbrown casserole, biscuit and gravy, sausage and orange juice or coffee for $6.

I’m making some of my husband Phil’s excellent chili which will be frozen and next to The Red Tamale because they go together brilliantly. All profits from chili sales go to the market’s WIC coupon program which begins in June.

The Red Bridge Trio will bring foot-stompin’ bluegrass and joyful gospel to the market stage.

Mid-Missouri Bank is once again giving away seedlings. The choices this year are:  Rose Mallow, Serviceberry, Spicebush, Wild Plum, and Deciduous Holly.

It’s the first Clickety Clack – We’re Reading Down the Track event and “Peppa Pig and the Big Train” is the featured book on the streetcar. Rick Gardner will have a model train operating in the market with some of the Peppa Pig characters. Our market assistant’s husband is face painting. It will be quick and simple – and free – just some whiskers or a button nose to create a market full of Peppa’s friends – Candy Cat, Suzy Sheep, Rebecca Rabbit or Danny Dog among others (I’m not sure if he’s going to tackle Emily Elephant!)

Some of the tomato plants that Tim Green is bringing Saturday

The street car will leave the depot on the hour, at twenty after and at forty after from 9 to noon. As of today the 9, 11 and 11:40 rides are full. You can reserve seats on-line at eventbrite.com. Just search for Clickety Clack. The tickets are free. If there are any empty seats when it’s time for the streetcar to pull out, folks without reservations will be seated.

Clickety Clack, weather and funding permitting, will happen every third Saturday of the month through December. May’s book will feature Thomas.

The event is a collaboration of the market, the Friends of the Library, the Parks Department and the Southwest Railroad Association. Since we need 23 copies of the selected book so there will be one on each bench for the kids to follow along, this is a rather pricey free event. There will be a donation jar at the information table and at the depot if you’d like to help.

Music this week will be The Loose Notes on Tuesday and the Pommerts on Thursday. Ghetto Taco is serving weekday market meals this month.

 

We want to let our customers who bring their furry family members to the market know that we have learned that it is against city ordinance to bring animals into the pavilion or the kids tent. Certified service animals are, of course, welcome. We are trying to get the word out this month and will begin enforcing the ordinance on May 1^st.

Webb City Sentinel market column - 4/11/18

Hurray!  Don’t you just love it when preparation meets with success?  Even in the depths of winter, we don’t expect to open up the market in 24 degrees and close it in 29. But thanks to the sidewalls being tightly closed and our heaters doing their part, we were downright cozy in the market last Saturday despite the frigid temperatures outside. In fact it got so cozy that we toyed with shutting down one of the heaters, but decided against it. Better to shed some of our layers.  (notice all the coats hanging behind our vendors last Saturday)

So I can say without worry, come to the cozy market Saturday. After all, the forecast is for 20 degrees warmer than last week.

I was whining to my daughter Cora about the swings in temperature. She wasn’t overly sympathetic. In Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) where she lives the temperature swung from 70 degrees to, with the wind chill, 20 below zero last week. Yes, the weather can always be worse.  (my daughter-in-law shared the photo below Friday morning, April 13.  Yes, 70 degrees on Saturday and snow the following Friday.  It's dark because they were leaving for the airport for a holiday in Viet Nam.  Mongolian flights seem to leave super early.)

This Saturday, inside the warm pavilion the Kids Garden Club will plant marigolds, make a flower craft and discuss companion planting.

The Fresh Ground Seed Library will hand out free seeds and teach people about seed saving. This is a project of the Ozark Gateway Master Gardeners and was very popular last year. I thought when they scheduled their first event in mid-April that they were awfully late. As it turned out, with such a late spring they may be right on target.

Sprout Faster will be back with their worm compost and Terrell Creek with their award-winning goat cheese. The knife sharpening will be back too! 

The Granny Chicks are on the market’s center stage making their 2018 debut.

Cooking for a Cause benefits the market’s WIC coupon program. Scrambled eggs, biscuit and gravy, sausage, hashbrown casserole and OJ or coffee for $6 gets you a lovely breakfast and provides a young low income family with nutrient-packed fresh produce. Our thanks go to the volunteers from Central United Methodist Church for staffing the breakfast. 

Swing by downtown Webb City after you go to the market to check out the Route 66 Cruise-a-Paloosa. 

Next Saturday, April 21, marks the beginning of the regular season for the market. Webb City Bank will give away seedlings again this year. Cooking for a Cause will benefit Webb City High School’s Project Graduation. Red Bridge Trio will be rocking out bluegrass and gospel. Clickety Clack – We’re Reading down the Track pulls out of the depot west of the market. 

There’s also a special market-related event next Saturday afternoon. Our German bakers who retired a couple of years ago are celebrating their 80^th birthday and want all their market friends to come. The celebration will be between 2 and 4 pm at the fellowship hall of the Diamond Christian Church, 203 Market Street in Diamond. They hope you will stop by.

What a great way to start the new season.  See you at the market.

Webb City Sentinel market column - 4/4/18

I think we’ll be very glad Saturday that the sides are still in place on the pavilion!   

Even if we didn’t have these most unwelcome cold temperatures, we usually keep the sides on until May because of the spring winds. We should see lots of plants – both veggies and flowering – come into the market in the next few weeks. Wind can wreck havoc on them so the sides are a real blessing. (Right, there are already a few plants for sale at the market, but give us a few weeks and you'll find beautiful baskets and loads of veggie plants like the 2017 photos below)

That said, we’ll sure enjoy being out of the wind and warmed by the big heaters this Saturday even if the plants aren’t ready for sale. And, just a reminder, the plants aren’t ready for sale by intention. Our growers are very familiar with planting schedules for our area and they plant on a schedule that allows them to bring plants to the market when they are the proper size for planting at the proper time for planting. It’s just too early in March and early April to put out warm weather plants like tomatoes out for another month. Typically the first week of May is considered a safe time to plant tomatoes. Not that it’s shaping up to be a typical year if Easter is any indication. I’m afraid any risk crops our farmers put out early is doomed. That means no early corn, or other warm weather field crops.

Hopefully we’ll make it through this week without the peaches and berries being decimated.

We expect a fun day. 

Stewart’s Bakery is serving breakfast and for eat-in or take-away Linda will have chili with beans.

William Adkins will be on the market stage.

Dinner’s Ready! is back with Vegetable & Ground Beef Stew, Pork Tenderloin with Potatoes and Carrots, Chicken and Noodles with Carrots and Taco Soup. These frozen meals made right here in Webb City are ready to pop in the slow cooker and serve 4.

So you can make plans, special things coming up at the market:

Saturday, April 14 – The Granny Chicks are playing, the Kids’ Garden Club is meeting, The Seed Savers will be giving away seeds.

Saturday, April 21 – Opening day for the regular season, free tree seedling give away, Red Bridge Trio plays, the first Clickety-Clack – We’re Reading Down the Track featuring “Peppa Pig and the Big Train” on the streetcar. Reserve your free tickets on the market’s facebook page. If you don’t on facebook, come by the information table and we’ll secure you reservations. 

Saturday, May 5 - Let's Plant a Garden Day - a free tomato plant for every child.

Saturday, May 13 - The Mother's Day Market!

Come by the information table if 

– you more information on special activities at the market,

- you’d like to volunteer at the market, 

- you have a brilliant idea to share, 

- you have a question, 

- you need to get tokens with your credit, debit or SNAP card, 

- you need to buy a market bag, you have a question, or 

- you just want to chat.

See you at the market!