Evansville Farmers Market - May 2011 - WELCOME!!!

Hi All,

Spring has finally sprung and the Evansville Farmers Market, Evansville, Wis. is now open for business!!!  If you like what you see in the image above, come and check us out every Saturday from 9am-1pm through October.  We are located next to Creekside Place on Church and Maple St, downtown Evansville.

This was our third weekend open and the market continues to grow in vendors and in visitors.  Our first weekend was April 30 with family friendly events planned each week ranging from poetry to potting plants to growing herbs to spinning demonstrations.  This past week, on May 20-22, Evansville hosted a Union Civil War Reenactment.  Many of our vendors got into the spirit and dressed in semi-period clothing.  Unfortunately, as hard as we tried, we could not convince our co-manager, Josh Wiser of Wiser Produce, to dress up as a farmer from that time period.  He DID let his beard grow though. :)

May 21, 2011
Evansville Farmers Market vendors
dressed up for the Reenactment.

Last weekend, we had ropes for jumping, both adults and kids alike and the weekend before that, we had flower planting in mini-pots with artificial flowers for Mother's Day gifts.  In the weeks to come, we will have Master Gardener's joining us to talk about visitor's gardening challenges and do demonstrations, florists to talk about flower arrangement and maybe even some cooking demonstrations later in the summer.  We welcome suggestions that will make our market, the Evansville Farmers Market, unique and interesting to all who visit.

Currently, we are giving away sunflower seed packets to children to see who can grow the largest sunflower head.  Be sure to stop by our information booth to get your free packet of seeds, through them in the ground and let them grow!  Fall should be interesting as people bring in their sunflower heads for pictures and measurements.  Prizes have yet to be determined but will probably be in line with our mission to support local vendors at our market. 

Some of the yummy, healthy AND local choices available at the Evansville Farmers Market have included local honey, farm fresh eggs, green onions, spinach, morels, wild asparagus, and rhubarb.  We also have bedding plants for your veggie gardens and flower beds.  We even have some non-edible items such as artisan yarns, custom fishing poles, hand embroidered dish towels, crocheted wash cloths, hand woven place mats, dish towels, and shawls, beeswax candles, body butter (YUM!), goat's milk soap (personally tried it and LOVED IT!) and so much more as our vendors start to harvest their produce from the late start spring gardens. 

We are always looking for more vendors as well as suggestions of vendors to make our market unique to Evansville and bring people in from far and wide to sample what we have to offer in such a beautiful and historic town.  Part of our mission is to include "urban farmers".  An "urban farmer" is a person who lives in a residential area that enjoys growing/raising things to share with others.  If you are one of those people whose gardens are overflowing with flowers, tomatoes, herbs, fruit and more - THIS IS FOR YOU!  Come on down Saturday and talk with Renee Frank or Josh Wiser or Marie Messinger to find out how your "urban farm" might fit into a farmers market.  We also welcome vendors that can "value add" to prepurchased products. 

One example is the embroidery of dish towels.  The towels are not yet a locally made item, but the embroidery is most definitely hand made with love by Marie Messenger of Sweetfield Farm just outside of Evansville, Wis.  Another example might be the creation of beeswax candles or dried flower arrangements.  The products can be purchased by the vendor but assembled in such a way that they have made them more desirable to visitors.

So come out this Saturday, rain or shine, May 28, 2011 to see what you can find and be a guest blogger about it!  Enjoy the sunshine and blue skies!  - Inkoze,                        rlfn12c@gmail.com or evansvillefarmersmarket@gmail.com

To find out more on the rules and regulations for the Evansville Farmers Market, please go to our website www.evansvillefarmersmarket.com for what it takes to be a part of a growing movement supporting locally and sustainably grown food and related items right here in Evansville, Wisconsin.