Farmer’s market flourishes in downtown State College
BY SALLY DUNMIRE
Staff Correspondent
STATE COLLEGE - Every
Friday afternoon, rain or shine,
market gardeners from across
Centre County congregate on
McAllister Street in State College,
to sell their homegrown products,
fruits, flowers, herbs, plants, and
baked goods.
But it wasn’t always such an
attraction.
Nine years ago. several area
growers ran an ad in the local
paper. Anyone interested in
starting a farmer's market was
invited to attend an organizational
meeting. And that’s how the Centre
County Farmer’s Market was
bom. It’s still going strong with 26
active members today.
“The first market site was out on
Benner Pike, behind the Nittany
Mall. It wasn’t worth it-$lO was a
good day,” according to Tucker
Paterson, who, with his wife, Joy,
was in on the ground floor. “Since
moving the site into State College,
we’re doing real well, especially
football weekends; lots of traffic
walking by here,” he said with a
big smile.
“On a good day, a stand can
average $3OO to $6OO a day," said
Joy.
“We open the market, for all
Centre County growers the week
after Arts Festival, and are open 12
weeks thereafter. Three weeks
before and 3 weeks after the Arts
Festival, a limited number of
organization gardeners, can come
in and set up. State College doesn't
want to block off another whole
street during Arts Festival. We
pay $lO.OO a year to belong to the
farmer’s market, plus pay a
Tucker Paterson, one of the founders of the Farmer’s
Market in State College, tends his stand.
Jackie Greenfield, right, of Bur Oak Farm of Howard, with
her friend and helper, Nancy Scott, left Jackie sells herbs,
flowers and vegetables at her stand.
percentage of our day’s gross,
anywhere from $1.50-$15.00 each
market day. That money goes to
pay State College Borough for the
use of the street. The rest goes to
advertising and there is a banquet
at the end of the year for
everyone," said Tucker.
■ What I really like about this
market is that it opens at noon until
5:30. This is an afternoon town. We
can pick almost everything fresh
that morning, so it’s really fresh
when people buy it. At markets
that open early in the morning,
growers have to pick the night
before, so their produce can’t be as
fresh as ours," he explained
Tucker must be doing all right.
This year he became a full time
farmer and market gardener, his
9th year in the business.
Previously, he worked part-time
for the state.
His wife, Joy, works two days a
week as a registered nurse at a
local psychiatric hospital. The rest
of her time is devoted to their two
small children and the gardens.
The flowers are her primary
responsibility. Tucker helpes out
with the vegetable garden.
They have one-and-a-half acres
in vegetables and flowers. Six
acres are devoted to sweet corn, an
excellent seller at the market.
Alfalfa, mostly sold at the
Belleville auction, is raised on 70
acres.
Tucker does advertise, in the
Farming newspaper, in
an effort to sell his hay,himself. He
prefers to move his alfalfa by the
tractor trailer load, if able. “The
hay business is tricky. We have
good years and bad years, like a lot
of farmers,” Tucker said.
Shoppers browse through the stands at the sidewalk Farmer s Market in State
College.
• For the most part, everything
is grown organically. We use a lot
of manure on our fields and gar
dens. I like to rotate my fields, so
they go fallow on the year nothing
is planted,” he stated.
"In the vegetable garden, we use
locally available organic fertilizer,
Earthrite, on the produce. What
has worked out well for us, is to
plant in widely spaced rows. We till
between the rows often to keep
weeds down. We use a
hiller/furrower tiller attachment
so we can dirt mulch.’ This at
tachment piles up soil around the
plants to keep the roots moist and
the weeds back,” explained Joy.
For market, we grow what we
grow for ourselves - tomatoes,
beets, sweet corn, sweet peppers,
broccoli, and green beans. Some
oddities like yellow pear tomatoes
sell well here. I guess I’m just an
old fashioned farmer, so we stick
to the basics. Jo} makes a few
jellies, jams, and loaves of
homemade bread, which we also
offer at market, ’ ’ Tucker said.
Fresh cut flowers of zinnias,
statice, cockcomb, snapdragons,
bells of Ireland, strawflowers,
globe amaranth, stellar scococia,
scabocia, baby’s breath, mums,
and marigolds are all good sellers -
mixed bunches in particular. We
use Miracle-Gro on the flowers. We
seed our short blooming annuals,
at intervals, until midsummer - so
as the old plants play out, the new
ones will start to flower. Another
important thing to do, to keep the
blooms coming, is deadheading -
removing the spent flower heads so
the plants won’t go to seed,” stated
Joy. Once the plants have formed
seed pods, they will stop producing
blooms.
Some of these varieties are
strictly for fresh table flowers.
Many, however, can be dried and
made into arrangements for
Forage Conference to include hay preservative panel
DOYLESTOWN Selecting
forage species, planting and
establishing forage crops and
preserving hay will be among the
topics covered at the Annual
Forage Conference at Delawart
Valley College, Doylestown
Scheduled for Nov. 26, from !»
a.m. to 3:30 p.m., the confererice is
sponsored by the Pennsylvania
Forage and Grassland'Council in
cooperation with Delaware Valley
winter months. These include the
statice, baby's breath, cockcomb,
strawflowers, globe amaranth,
and stellar scobosia.
At market, it s important to
know the names of the flowers, &
how to care for them to keep them
fresh - they can last at least a week
with proper treatment. Most
important of all, to successfully
sell at a farmer’s market, you have
to like people. We have customers
who seek us out no matter where
we are, because they like us and
our produce,' Tucker said.
"At first, when we moved into
State College, my stand was far
ther up the street. When one of the
other members dropped out, I took
her area on the street corner - a
prime location. People came
looking for me when I moved. That
is one of the bylaws, of the
organization, by the way, spots are
awarded on a first-come, first
served basis. If someone drops out,
you can ask for their area. A
grower can retain their location for
a year of absence. We have a lot of
teachers who go on a year's sab
batical, and come back the
following market year to sell. The\
can get their old location back
then After a year, that spot
belongs to someone else," he ex
plained.
Another bylaw is that all the
organization members have to live
in Centre County. There is only one
exception, a Mifflin County
grower, McNitt's Fruit Farm. This
is because he was one ot the
original founding members with
Hamers Fruit Farm, of State
College. Any new members must
also grow their produce in Centre
County. To sell it here, you have to
grow it yourself. That s nice
because it keeps out the large
wholesalers who import produce
and flowers from California and
Florida. You know if you buy it
College and Penn State University.
The morning session will focus
on establishment of forage crops
and address the use of marginal
soils, weed control, no-till planting
and fluidseedmg.
In the afternoon, presentations
on selection of forage species and
hay preservation will be followed
by a panel discussion in which four
farmers describe their experience
with hay preservative materials.
Speakers at the conference will
here at this market, it is reaUj
fresh, not passed oft as fresh,' said
Jackie Greenfield, of Burr Oaf 1
Farm, Howard, Fa., another!
market gardener. It gives the
small grower a chance to compete
successfully. i
Jackie has been market gar- 1
dening fulltime for two years. She, j
her husband, and two year ok[]
daughter, - with a lot of help from
their friends, work two acres on
vegetables, flowers, herbs, and!
small fruits. Her husband wortej
full time at landscape 11. as i|
wood safety specialist. I
At market she sells vegetables!
flowers, cut fresh herbs, herln
plants, and small fruits as ripe
She also provides wholesale herl
and produce to local restaurant
Vegetables that sell well for h<
are onions, shallots, broccol
lettuce, spinach, and tomatoes.
Our specialties are Chines
lefeks, due to the large Oriental
population in the State College
area, and, or course, our fresh
herbs. 1 sell fresh cut thyme,
parsley, Italian parsley,
rosemary, lemon thyme, tarragon,
sage, and the mints
Everything is organuallj
grown, we have people who seek us
out because we grow and sell
organically grown foods, and I
really insist on quality or I wont'
sell it. I divide my herb perennials,
pot, and sell at market for $125 to
$2.00 for a tour inch pot I grow
annual herbs, in the spring, in ouC
makeshift greenhouse These all
sell well here in this town, ex
plained Jackie.
Jackie’s tip tor successful
market selling,-educate people
We do a lot of teaching at our
stand - how to use the herbs, howto
prepare the vegetables, & how to
put them up, said Jackie You
will sell more it you know what you
are selling and how to use them
include industry representatives
and agronomists from The Penn
sylvania State University, the
Delaware Valley College and
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University.
For more information, 01 to
register for the conference, con
tact Larry Hepner, Agronomy
Department, Delaware Valley
College, Doylestown, PA 18901,
phone (215)345-1500.