Vendors brave rain at the season’s first Cache Valley Gardeners Market
Tents were pitched, tables set up and live music performed as visitors gathered in the rain Saturday morning for the first Cache Valley Gardeners Market of the summer.
The CVGM is held every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Cache Valley Historic Court House, and hosts a variety of booths selling everything from fresh produce and handmade crafts, to sweet desserts and garden plants.
“It’s local people coming together to sell locally-produced items, food mostly, and then they also welcome handcrafted art from the community,” said Carol Warburton, a vendor selling handcrafted stoneware and pottery.
Throughout the years, different places have hosted the CVGM, including Willow Park, Merlin Olsen Park and the Tabernacle. This is its first year by the courthouse on Main Street.
“I think it’s a good plan — it brings some life into downtown Logan on Saturday mornings,” said Cheryl Brunsen, a member of Cache Valley Master Gardeners. “The market has always been the happening place in the valley on Saturday mornings.”
Diane Baum, also a member of Cache Valley Master Gardeners, agrees.
“It really is the happening place in the valley,” Baum said. “I talk to a lot of people who say, ‘I’ve never gone.’ And I just think, ‘What a waste!’ I walked past all those asparagus on our way in and I thought, ‘Oh my god, I got to go cash a check.'”
The original idea was to encourage locals to grow their own food in their backyards, said Mary Ann Hubbell, the secretary of the CVGM. The market was formed as a place for gardeners to sell their excess produce. It has since grown from a handful of tables to hundreds of different vendors signed up to sell their wares over the course of the summer.
“It’s mostly a local-made or -grown market,” Hubbell said. “You have to have either made it or grown it yourself.”
But the CVGM does not turn away vendors that may not live close by. Hubbell explained these are called specialty booths, and are equally enjoyed by customers.
One of the benefits of having so many local growers sell at the market is the intimacy with the buyer and vendor, Hubbell said. At the CVGM, people can get to know local artisans and farmers as well as their goods.
Many vendors have been regulars for years, while others are new to the market. Warburton started selling her stoneware at the CVGM seven years ago.
“I kept hearing that it was good, but I kept hesitating to do it because of how heavy my stuff is, and the thought of setting up for a few hours just didn’t appeal to me,” Warburton said. “So I did one. And the very first market that I did, I just brought a table and put some pots on it and it went way better than I thought, and I’ve done it ever since.”
As the summer progresses, more vendors and visitors will pass through the market, numbering in the thousands, Baum said.
“I don’t think a lot of people realize how many people come to the gardeners market,” Hubbell said. “In the morning you get here and there’s nothing here, and then it slowly builds up to be like this but larger. It’s like this little tiny community and then in the afternoon, it breaks back down and disappears for a week then it comes back the next week.”
The market will be held weekly until October 17. Events have been scheduled periodically through the summer, including a Children’s Day on June 6.
“It’s incredible,” Brunsen said. “And it really promotes sustainability and people growing healthier food and sharing it with the public and people being able to profit financially, also, off their gardens.”
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