UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, August 25, 1992
5
Paul Kotz / KANSAN
Mary Flory, Baldwin resident, sells her fresh fruits and vegetables at the Lawrence Farmers' Market, Tenth and Vermont streets.
Farmers' market offers variety
Market supplies bread fresh vegetables and breakfast for shoppers
By Kristi Fogler
Kansan staff writer
For more than 16 years, the Lawrence Farmers' Market has attracted area residents in search of just-off-the-vine tomatoes and fresh-baked breads.
The market, Tenth and Vernont streets, will continue until Nov. 14. The market is open Tuesday through Thursday from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays 6:30 a.m. to about 10 a.m.
Shelley Puckett, market organizer, said that each week more than 65 vendors and farmers came to the market selling produce, baked and canned goods and fresh and dried flowers. Vendors travel from as far away as Topeka and Kansas City to sell their goods to the Lawrence community.
The market also offers a variety of vegetables, spices and herbs that are not available in grocery
stores. A breakfast featuring hot, grilled smoked sausage is available on Saturday mornings.
The market caters to vendors on every level of farming. "We get retired persons selling tomatoes out of their garden and traditional full-time farmers selling for their sole income." Puckett said.
It also is a good place for people starting their own small produce or plant business. Puckett said teenagers occasionally manage a produce stand as a summer job.
Eleven years ago, Karen Pendleton, an owner of Pendleton's Kaw Valley Asparagus in rural Lawrence, sold a few ears of corn at the market. The next year Pendleton and her husband, John, planted 10 acres of asparagus and sold it at the market. Currently they sell asparagus, tomatoes, rhubarb, flowers and blue corn chips made from home-grown blue corn.
"The farmers' market gives me flexibility in case of a crop failure," Pendleton said. "At the farmers' market I can sell whatever I have on hand. It gives me leeway."
Not only does the market provide flexibility, but it can be profitable for the small farmer, she said.
"When you are able to sell at farmers' market you are able to sell retail." Pendleton said. "When you go to a wholesaler, the wholesaler gives you the current wholesale price. Wholesalers are not interested in two weeks of crop a year. They want someone who will produce all season."
The farmers' market, however, is not all corn and wheat bread. Recently it has become a Lawrence street
"You see all the political people doing their campaigning down there," Pendleton said.
The social involvement is what Ann Flory of Lawrence enjoys most about the farmers' market.
Flory and her husband, Marvin, have been gardening for a long time, but only became involved with the market two years ago. The Florys own several small gardens, and they said they were able to supplement their retirement income.
Flory said the market also had been an opportunity to get involved in the community.
"Meeting the public is exciting, and I like being able to furnish fresh vegetables for them," Flory said. "I enjoy seeing the people and getting out."
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