Growing from the ground up

Key Peninsula Farmers’ Market gains momentum despite slow season

Paige Richmond

of the Gateway

Holly Hendrick can’t remember the last time she saw a farmers’ market on the Key Peninsula. She has an inkling that a small market was held in Lakebay some five years ago, but she didn’t personally shop there, and she doesn’t know anyone who did.

The void was something that never made sense to her, since she knows the Key Peninsula is filled with both amateur and expert farmers.

“I grew up on farmers’ markets,” Hendrick said, adding she assumed the KP would have a market when she moved to her own 5-acre farm in the area in 2003.

Now, with Hendrick’s help, local growers will have a place to sell their wares. The Key Peninsula launched its summer-long farmers’ market in the parking lot of O’Callahan’s Pub & Grill two weeks ago, with Hendrick at the helm as market manager.

More than 400 shoppers perused the 12 stands run by local farmers, crafters and bakers — a strong showing for a slow crop season among local farmers.

“It’s such a great movement to buy local,” said Donna White, a market vendor who has owned Morgan Creek Farms in Vaughn for the past decade. “It seems natural that someone would have started this years ago.”

The reason the market is starting now, Hendrick said, is because the time is ripe for it — both in terms of community interest and governmental support.

“I think the political stuff has changed so much that, now, the Key Peninsula is ready for it,” she said.

The idea gained speed last October, when the Pierce County Harvest Fest — a tour of local farms — took place on the KP. The market became a reality this spring, when the county government finalized the Key Peninsula Community Plan, a 20-year outline that aims to support the area’s agriculture.

The plan spelled out the need for a farmers’ market run by KP’s citizens.

That’s where Hendrick comes in. She attended a Livable Key meeting in February, and the farmers’ market — planning, scheduling and finding volunteers — was the topic of conversation.

Hendrick took on the role of manager, which meant she helped established the organization’s 501(c)(3) status, write the bylaws, and she helped partner with the Washington State Farmers’ Market Association.

“We’re growing the market, literally, from the ground up,” she said.

While Hendrick has received applications from enough local crafters to create a waiting list, she had lower-than-expected signups from farmers during the market’s first week. It’s not a lack of interest but rather a lack of goods that kept the farmers away: many cite an unseasonably cold spring as delaying the growth of their crops.

The KP Farmers’ Market will be the first for Kate Hamilton, who owns Pampered Goat Brothers Farm with her business partner, Jeanine Luken. Although the two women have 10 acres of land on the Key Peninsula, they only started raising crops this year, having previously used the space for their two pet pygmy goats to graze.

But when Hamilton decided to sell her heirloom tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, green onions and spinach at the first market two weeks ago, she hit a snag.

“It’s been way too cool,” she said. “Tomatoes especially need sunshine, and we have not quite enough for that.”

Hamilton feels the delay is just one of the many mistakes she’s made during her first year of farming. But other, more experienced farmers, like White, have had trouble this season, too.

“I’m certainly behind, as everyone else is, because of the weather,” said White, adding that her flower bouquets are “about a month, maybe five weeks behind schedule.”

The slow crops have even affected Chanetta Ludwig, who raises bees on her KP farm. She sells honey, beeswax candles, lotion bars and soap at markets in Gig Harbor and Puyallup, in addition to the KP event.

Ludwig said the weather has “a little bit of an effect” on bees, since the insects need to draw nectar from flowers and fruit to create honey.

“I think we’re just, maybe, a couple of weeks out,” Ludwig said.

Despite the slow season, Hamilton, White and Ludwig are all excited about and grateful for the market, especially since there are only a few grocery stores on the Key Peninsula, and not many that sell local produce.

“We’re so far away from everything, anyway,” White said. “Luckily, we have a community grocery store, but to have to go all the way to Albertsons is tough, for a lot of us.”

Hendrick believes the market will keep Key Peninsula residents close to home — both in starting their own farms and buying from their neighbors.

“It’s the freshest crops you can get,” she said, “without growing it yourself.”

Who can sell at the KP Farmers’ Market

Keeping the produce local is important to the Key Peninsula market.

The goal of the market is “to celebrate the residents of the Key Peninsula and their efforts to farm, create and flourish,” Tara Froode, the market’s president, wrote via e-mail. “In doing so, we are protecting our rural farm land and celebrating our rural identity.”

The market maintains a 5-to-1 ratio of Key Peninsula growers to vendors selling products from other areas in the state. To make sure more farmers are represented, the market only allows one crafter for every three farmers.

The Key Peninsula Farmers’ Market is held from noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays until Sept. 28 at the parking lot of O’Callahan’s Pub & Grill, 15610 92nd St. KPN in Lakebay. Call Tara Froode, the President of the Key Peninsula Farmers Market Board of Directors for more information. Her number is 253-884-6350 and her e-mail is tarafroode@centurytel.net; alternately, e-mail can be sent to info@kpfarmersmarket.org.

Reach Reporter and Columnist Paige Richmond at 253-853-9243 or by e-mail at paige.richmond@gateline.com.