For a very long time I’ve been drawn to the dream and romance of small farming.  I know that sounds a little strange, what is so romantic about smelly animals and hard labor? While that is true, the dreamer in me chooses to ignore that and focus on beautiful baskets of eggs, the glass pitcher of home grown milk and the satisfaction of a garden well weeded.  I also cannot ignore the beauty of my garden at dusk or the thrill of those first pea shoots making their arrival in early spring.

Part of that dream included being able to sell our healthy, local produce and other products at farmers markets.  Not long after we purchased the farm I started looking into what that would entail and very quickly the reality became clear: big markets are not for small farmers.  I know that seems to go against the idea of farmers markets, they are geared toward the small farmer, right? Well, yes and no.  They are geared towards the middle farmer.  It is very difficult for a small hobby farmer, who has a day job to generate enough produce to make a farmers market profitable after booth fees and competing with the bigger producers

Then we decided to try to sell our products right from the farm, using social media we advertised what we had available and took orders for pick up.  We had some success, but not a lot, people didn’t seem very interested in driving our way for produce.  Which is ok, we are all busy people.

I gave up on my dream and decided to just focus on my garden and make it beautiful and not worry so much about sell, turning a profit or even breaking even.  This clearly wasn’t my path. Or was it?

Then another like minded individual decided that my small city needed its own farms market and it needed to gear itself towards small farms and back yard enthusiasts. I watched, then I went and checked it out, then we took the leap.

I am so happy we did.