Weiser Farmers Market starts on June 15 this year

Published by admin on Tue, 05/23/2023 - 9:57pm

The 12th annual Weiser Farmers Market will run for 16 weeks this year under new event managers Jennifer Huff and her daughter. It has an earlier start date of June 15 and will be held on Thursdays at the historic train depot. There is still space for vendors and anyone interested may visit the Weiser Farmers Market Facebook page or call (208) 741-1757. The season will end with a Harvest Festival on Sept. 28. Photo courtesy of Weiser Farmers Market.
By: 
Philip A. Janquart
 The 12th annual Weiser Farmers Market is scheduled to kick off this year at the Weiser Train Depot on Thursday, June 15.
 It’s about a month earlier than previous years, which will give vendors the chance to make their early harvests available to the public.
 “Usually, they don’t start this until later July, but we just decided to go 16 weeks because a lot of your other farmers markets, over in Nampa and Caldwell, are running 18 to 20 weeks,” said Jennifer Huff who has taken over as the event’s manager.
 The market will take place on Thursday evenings from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Vendor booths are $5 per week, per booth and $10 per week, per booth with electricity.
All the money goes back into running the market.
 “There is limited space available for booths with power, but I think we still have one or two left,” Huff said.
 The market will close a half an hour earlier than in past seasons, which Huff said will work out better for vendors.
 “It really slows down after seven and we talked with the vendors and a lot them feel like that last half hour they are just, kind of, sitting there in the heat,” she said. “Everybody gets off work at four or five and there is this rush for an hour or an hour and a half and then it really slows down.”
 As of last week, about 15 vendors had signed up to participate. Between 22 and 24 vendors are anticipated for 2023.
 “We are hoping to have about the same number as last year, if not a few more,” Huff said. “We have some newer people who have reached out to us in the last week.”
 New this year is a Harvest Festival to end the season.
 “We plan on having it on the last day of the market,” Huff said. “We are going to extend it a couple hours and have some people with their later harvests come in, like corn stalk and stuff like that. We are going to try to have somebody come in with some pumpkins and have some different booths for entertainment like bobbing for apples, things like that.”
 Huff is hoping to increase the variety of vendors at this year’s market.
 “I would really like to get more produce vendors,” she said. “We have quite a few craft vendors, which is great, but we are really trying to get some more produce vendors. I would like to see more cut flowers, too.”
 Although there is limited vendor space, Huff said she would like to see the market grow.
 “When we get to the point where we feel we need to expand, we may go into that dirt lot next to the train depot or consider what we could do next from there. As we grow, there are other things we can do, but we have to grow first and get pretty solid. The train depot is a fantastic location; we love it there.
 “Our goal is to get our feet underneath us because me and my daughter have taken over as the market managers. Next year, I’m hoping to start a lot stronger in the early season.”
 Once again, the vendors will be accepting SNAP cards, but not at first.
 “There is some stuff we have to do, and we are going to offer it, but I don’t know if we will have it the first couple of weeks,” Huff said. “We just don’t know how long the process is going to take, but we definitely plan on having the SNAP program.”
 For more information, visit the Weiser Farmers Market on its Facebook page or call (208) 741-1757.
 

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Signal American

18 E. Idaho St.
Weiser, ID 83672
PH: (208) 549-1717
FAX: (208) 549-1718
 

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