Final Weeks of the Season for the Cache Valley Gardeners Market (newswriting)
The weather is getting colder, and the harvest season for produce growers at the Cache Valley Gardeners’ Market is winding down. With the rainy conclusion of the Sept. 30 market Saturday, there are only three weeks left of the market this year. However, there’s still a selection of local fruit, vegetables and other items for customers to buy.
“Today was our last day here at the market selling peaches,” said vendor Marissa Nelson, co-owner of Nelson Farm in Perry. “So, that’s always a little bit of a sad day. People are sad. They always want one more week, and we kind of want one more week, but we’re officially done for the year.”
While the peaches are gone, Nelson, who has sold at the market for six years, has other produce to sell for the remainder of the season. Saturday she sold squash, pumpkins and a type of winter watermelon with an extra-thick rind she said can stay good in storage up until Christmastime.
It was the final week of the year at the market for fruit grower Sherm Thomson of Grandpa’s Gourmet Fruit in North Logan. He’s been selling at the market for 10 years. He sold mostly apples on Saturday, but said he raises just about every kind of fruit that grows in Cache Valley.
However, a cold winter and frost caused him to have a bad year. He didn’t get any apricots, peaches, plums or pluots, and his apple crop was down 90 percent. While he normally sells at the market for eight weeks, this year he only sold for two. As for the off season, Thomson is a snowbird who goes south for the winter. He leaves for Arizona in November.
Carole and Mick Warburton of Avon sell Carole’s ceramic pottery at the market under the name Paradise Pottery. Carole’s been making pottery for 47 years. They’ve been selling at the market for seven or eight years. There’s a drop off in customers at the market when it’s cold, they said. Vendors who usually sell out in the summer still had produce leftover at closing time on Saturday.
With the cold, wet weather and varieties of fruit and vegetables dwindling, what did customers buy at the market, and will they keep coming back?
The Warburtons aren’t just vendors. They’re customers as well. They bought sausage, kale, pumpkin, cilantro and lunch there. They said they wish more people attended the market in the fall because there’s still produce coming on.
Market customer Suzi Yates lives in Millville, but she’s originally from Vietnam. She bought leeks to make potato-leek soup and mustard greens to cook with shrimp for soup or stir fry. She attends the market some weeks but not all. She’ll definitely be there next week, but after that, she’s going to Europe, so she’ll miss the final two, she said.
The Cache Valley Gardeners’ Market runs every Saturday from 9 a.m.–1 p.m. until Oct. 21. It’s located behind the Cache Historic Courthouse at 199 N. Main St. in Logan. Of course, there are other products to buy from the market besides produce. There are bread, cheese, meat, fish, egg, honey, craft and other vendors. There are also food stalls and live music.