PORT TOWNSEND — Saturday will be the last day of the season that local vendors offer locally grown produce and unique arts and crafts at the Port Townsend Farmers Market.
The market — which is from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tyler Street between Lawrence and Clay streets — will close for the winter after today, Saturday, with plans to reopen April 2, one month earlier than the opening date for 2010.
This market — and its companion markets — close the year on a note of great success, market director Will O’Donnell said.
In addition to the Saturday market, the Jefferson County Farmers Markets also manages the Wednesday Port Townsend market, which closed for the season in September and will reopen in June, and the Chimacum Market, which closed in October and will reopen in May.
“This is the first time we have ever exceeded $1 million in total vendor sales,” O’Donnell said.
“We are one of the largest, most successful market [organizations] per capita in the nation.”
The Port Townsend Farmers Market draws between 1,500 and 2,000 visitors and 70 vendors each weekend during the peak season, O’Donnell said.
This weekend, only about 30 vendors are expected, since food production decreases in the winter. Recent storms also cut quantities of available local food, O’Donnell said.
No special events are planned for today, aside from the availability of the 2011 Farmers Market Calendar and Christmas wreaths.
“This is the only place that you can actually shake the hand that feeds you,” O’Donnell said.
He then joked, “Although you might want to use hand sanitizer.”
One of the precautions of organically grown produce is that it must be washed carefully, but this is a small price to pay for what has become an obvious benefit of eating healthy food grown by local farmers.
“This food is way better than what you get in a chain market, no contest,” said Laurette Feit, owner of Sweet Laurette’s, a farmers market customer since the mid-1990s.
“Not only does it taste better, it has more nutritional value and hasn’t left a huge carbon footprint from being shipped 1,000 miles in the back of a semi-truck,” she added.
“You are getting local food that hasn’t been mass-produced or grown in soil that is no longer fertile.”
Money is not the only measure of success or quality for a market.
“I’ve been to markets throughout France, and what we have here is just as good,” Feit said.
“We have a unique and special market.”
O’Donnell said the market “has a vast array of local food.
“We are proud of this, as well as the fact that its availability is one of the reasons that people find Port Townsend so attractive and want to move here.”
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
