How We Started At The Rochester Farmers Market

When Andrea was three years old we had an abundance of lettuce and radishes in our garden. We were regular shoppers at the Rochester Downtown Farmers Market so we took the produce to the market. We just showed up and didn't know anything about the market rules or what to do. We talked to the current market manager and he had an extra space available. (You wouldn't be allowed to just show up at the market today. You have to apply and be approved by the board to sell.) This was a little bit of serendipity that changed our family direction.

Andrea set-up her little wooden table and chair and within an hour had sold all the produce. She really liked talking to her customers so we went a few more times in the spring and again when we had extra tomatoes in the late summer.

I liked to garden and Andrea liked to sell so we intentionally planted extra for market the following year.

We continued to build on this experience until we were growing over $10,000 of produce on less than 1/4 acre several years later. We were using many of the techniques of Biointensive Gardening by the author John Jeavons (see http://www.vegetablefreak.com/2013/01/my-top-farming-books.html ). It took seven years of soil improvement to achieve this level of soil fertility and the exp
erience to grow this intensively.

We continued to grow with the farmers market as our young children were able to learn and do more.

We consider the other vendors at the market part of our extended family. It has been a great relational environment for them to grow up in.