Tom Little, Farmers Market Manager, tells us about a new Durango’s Farmers Market season. There will be some new vendors selling mushrooms, live music, food and fun! Guests are asked to wear a mask and enjoy themselves. Sponsored by 2180 Lighting & Design Studio and Whole Health Family Medicine Clinic
So Durango Farmers Market started 25 years ago. This is our 25th season. And it is kind of unique in that our board of directors is mandated that it's got to be four of the five board have to be farmers and everything that we do here is all within mind of trying to help out the family farm. And all our farmers are local to La Plata County. And then the four closest surrounding counties including San Juan County, New Mexico. And we bring up local farmers and they bring their goods. Everybody you buy your, everything you buy at the Durango farmer's market you buy from the person who produced it.
Roots.
How are they?
I don't work for these guys by the way. But I am eating their carrots.
And how does it taste?
Oh, they're awesome. I've already eaten one.
One thing that's going to be new this year is we have four mushroom cultivators that have sprung up and they are going to be bringing fresh mushrooms to the market that they're cultivating, obviously indoors but here in the area. So we didn't have any mushrooms at all last year. So that is going to be something that's kind of new and exciting.
Hey, this is Justin and Victoria from Leaf Cutter farms, growing fresh local mushrooms, and we're stoked for market season! Whoo!
I was here as a farmer, so I've been here since this farmer's market started 25 years ago. This is my favorite part of our community.
So we do have COVID protocols. All our booths have to be at least six feet apart for our farmers who are very busy, we've marked X's on the ground so that you can stay six feet apart as you're waiting in line. So this year we are asking that people wear masks. We're not maintaining the six foot distance all the time. So because of that, we're asking that you wear a mask. We are going to have live music and we are going to have food that you can eat here. So we ask that, you know, maybe you just spend, if you're listening to music you listen to one or two songs, you put a tip in the jar, and then maybe you go to another area of the market. And the same with the food. We don't have a designated area to eat food but if you're buying food that's ready to eat, you should go ahead and enjoy that while you're here. We have a no pets rule here. So we do ask that the dogs stay home. If you want to volunteer just get ahold of us through our website. You can email me at DFMmanager@DurangoFarmersMarket.com. We have all the vendors that we can handle except for two categories. One is the informational category which is really for non-profits, so we still have room for nonprofit groups that want to get in, and farmers who are just starting out or even home gardeners that want to try it, we have our incubator program. So there's a chance for you to get involved if you're an incubator or through the nonprofit. So Durango Farmer's Market is going to be open eight to noon. We're going to be open from May 8th all the way through the very last Saturday in October. And we will be open in October. We open at nine because it's too little too cold and too dark to start at eight, but otherwise we're open 26 Saturdays in a row.