The radio comes on at 5:15 a.m. It comes on gently, playing something classical from KDFC. It is Saturday morning and August is here.
August, like July and through September, will be our largest harvest months from our produce and flower farm here in Alexander Valley. There will be no vacant space in our pickup truck, and each market day will be just a bit different, so the loading varies.
Always there will be nearly half a truck bed of melons, then boxes of lettuce and some smatterings of the usual cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes. Never predictable will be the fruit from the small orchard. Sometimes we have a good crop of peaches, sometimes not. Some apple trees produce one year, then not at all. It’s always a surprise.
Market day is the direct opposite of the usual work of farming. Farming is a job for those who don’t mind being alone with implements, who have no problem with repetitive motion, who find success only by sheer stubbornness and the refusal to accept defeat.
Marketing means being surrounded by people of varying interest and knowledge regarding agricultural pursuits, minding the minutiae of selling a product, learning how to best present each of those, from flower bouquets to onions.
One of the most interesting aspects of selling at a farmers’ market is noticing how each vendor chooses to display his or her plant production. It is always a reflection of the personalities behind the tables, and it is all good. The vendor must be comfortable in the space created, in order to extend that comfort to the customer. In other words, each of us is a sort of host within that space and the customer is our guest.
There is a certain amount of stress of the unknown present at each market but it is certainly tolerable. Will I remember all the things I must have at market in order to proceed throughout the morning? Did I forget any produce? A table? An umbrella stand?
The bags? The money box? Will there be an unhappy or even angry customer? Will I cut my hand or smash a finger working with all those boxes? Will I trip and fall off the truck bed and end my farming career in one big flop?
Any of these can and have already occurred, except the big flop.
Gratefully, I believe we would all agree that, by and large, our customers at any and all the markets are wonderful, patient, knowledgeable, curious and just plain fun to meet and get to know.
Particularly in our small town, we become acquainted with so many of you who come often to the markets. We hear about your vacations, we meet your visitors, we watch your children grow up.
One of the most heartwarming opportunities we become a part of, is to watch you young parents introducing your equally young children to the challenge of shopping for garden produce brought to you by your local neighbor farmers.
Learning about the different kinds of families of fruits and vegetables, all the array of colors, shapes and textures represents only what the farming community has grown for that year. There are new years and new foods ahead, always.
Personally, there is one exchange which succeeds in placing me on edge, and that is a statement spoken at least once a weekend from a customer to me. It goes like this: “Do you remember that melon (or apple or lettuce or winter squash) that you sold me last week?”
I answer “Yes,” even though I may not remember, and I brace myself for the next sentence from the customer.
“Well, it was the best melon I ever tasted.”
Ah, I can smile and genuinely respond, “I am glad.”
However, I always recall when the second sentence some years ago was: “My wife said that beet was the toughest beet she had ever tried to eat.”
I can honestly say I have never gotten over that beet and believe it has returned every time I am presented with that sentence “You know that (fruit/vegetable) I bought last week …?”
What I should do to get over this is to thoroughly deny that I ever sold the customer whatever it was that he or she is about to critique.
“Nope. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t here last week. I fell off the truck and was carted away for the day.”
Renee Kiff weeds and writes at her family farm in Alexander Valley.
