Fruita Farmers and Makers Market

On Saturday morning, there was a Farmers and Makers Market in downtown Fruita, so we decided to head over there to see what there was to see!

We must be in the right spot!

There were quite a large number of vendors -- 

... probably about 30 -- lots of different things being sold.

We purchased some sweet pickles from this booth. Carl chatted with the lady in the booth (who made all the things she was selling) about fermentation -- she does fermenting, but cannot sell that at the market because she doesn't have a way to keep it at a constant safe temperature while at the market.

Carl took a picture of this downtown business to share with his daughter, Kim.

We enjoy farmers markets -- we were hoping for some fresh vegetables, but guess it is too early for those yet in this area of the country. It is interesting to see what kinds of things are particularly popular -- one lady was sold out of her sourdough bread (her sign indicated she had had many different varieties and each had been crossed off with just one non-sourdough option remaining to be sold). There were at least two other booths that also had sourdough bread, and neither of them appeared to be sold out. There were two beef vendors, a pork vendor, and a fellow selling frozen chickens. 

The chicken guy actually has a peach orchard that he has recently purchased -- he is trying to get the orchard back into production mode, and, if I understood him correctly, is using chickens (by moving their coop every day) to rejuvenate the land. He said that he needed to plant the new peach trees in the same places where the old ones were planted because of the location of the irrigation -- but he needed to clean up the soil from the old trees (I think to get rid of nematodes?). He mentioned that he was following techniques espoused by a farmer in Virginia -- Joel Salatin, near Staunton. The peach farmer also mentioned that he had grown up in Richmond. Small world!

In case you're interested in more about Joel Salatin: https://polyfacefarms.com/about-us