Farmers’ markets cropping up
The Kootenai County Farmers’ Market opens Saturday with vendors peddling everything from fresh spring produce, plants and smoked salmon to locally produced crafts and artwork.
Vendors must abide by one cardinal rule, said Barbara Arnold, a longtime vendor and local herb grower: “You grow it, you make it, you bake it.”
Everything sold at the market – on a shady lot at the intersection of Highway 95 and Prairie Avenue – is locally grown or locally produced, Arnold said.
Arnold and her helpers were hard at work Tuesday at her 2 1/2-acre farm in Hayden, transplanting herbs from her greenhouse to fields behind her yellow farmhouse and preparing for Saturday’s opening day at the market.
Arnold’s business is named Nothing But Herbs, and she pretty much sticks to herbs – selling plants, dried herb mixes and teas and flavored oils. She sells some flowers, though, and will have viola bowls for sale this weekend.
The market opens at 8 a.m. Saturday and runs until 1 p.m.
Three new food vendors will be at the market this season, offering fresh-baked goods, smoked salmon rice bowls and vegetarian wraps prepared with produce from the market. A variety of live music is also planned.
Vendor Barb Giles said the market’s park-like setting makes it a nice place for people to gather.
“There is always fun people, good music, good food,” she said.
Arnold said it’s common for people to spend two hours browsing the marketplace.
Cindy dePaulis of Athol-based Lavender Frog specializes in everything lavender, from the plant itself to essential oils, sachets and mixtures of herbs. Her daughter sells baked goods, including cookies and scones, made with the fragrant herb.
Starting May 16, shoppers can go to the Downtown Market on Fifth Street between Sherman and Front avenues. The market will be open Wednesdays from 4 to 7 p.m.
“The ambiance is totally different,” Arnold said of the Downtown Market.
“It’s higher energy. You see the beach crowd and the working people coming by after work.”
DePaulis said the market has grown a great deal in the 21 years since it opened and attracts upward of 4,000 people each weekend.
“Farmers’ markets everywhere are really making a comeback,” she said. “People like to go to the market and talk to the person who produces the food. They can get an idea of what goes into it.”