Going to market

La Vonna Butz sells her fresh herbs and herbal products at the Crescent City Farmers Market on July 23. The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

Stop by the Crescent City Farmers Market on a Saturday and you’ll see people of all ages walking up and down the line of booths, asking questions about how to cook with this or that, fingering the hand-made goods and talking with each other. The circle of vendors in the parking lot of the Del Norte County Fairgrounds has grown a little longer each year.

Still, the number of people stopping by the market is down. Phillips thinks this has to do with fewer tourists passing through Crescent City stopping at the market due to the weak economy. The market is hard to miss right along U.S. Highway 101.

With less money in their pockets, “people are only going to buy what they need to buy,” Phillips said.

Typically by this time of year  there are 210-220 people walking around the market every half-hour, Phillips said, but this year so far it’s only been about 165 every half-hour.

Coming home with fudge

New vendors are arriving from up and down the coast. Recently, fudge from Coos Bay and kettle and carmel corn from Bandon were on sale.

The Riddle Family Fudge Factory has been bringing confections from Coos Bay to the market the last few weekends.

Tasha Riddle grew up in Crescent City and wanted to bring her family’s fudge to her hometown Farmers Market.

“It’s nice to come home,” she said. “I see people I haven’t seen in 20 years.”

Riddle and her husband wanted to start a family business so their five children could learn the basics of finance, responsibility and work ethic. They bought a fudge business last November in Coos Bay.

So far at the Saturday market, “everyone’s response has been really good,” she said. They have a variety of fudge, including chocolate-orange swirl, cappuccino and cranberry.

‘Great community affair’

Local resident Jim Strong buys beets at the Farmers Market last Saturday. The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

“People are standing around talking to each; they either come for the vegetables or bread or tamales,” Phillips said. “There are a lot of people just talking or introducing themselves to other people.”

The market has become what Phillips has been trying to achieve as manager for the last four years: “a great community affair,” he said. Live music each Saturday seems to be helping create that atmosphere as well, Phillips said.

There’s been a push to attract people who receive CalFresh benefits (food stamps) to buy food at the market by offering an extra $5 for the first $10 they spend, Phillips said.

As for the vendors, they seem to be doing alright, Phillips said. Farmers are selling food consistently and the crafters have good and bad days.

He’s not worried yet that the size of the market will start to shrink with fewer people shopping. 

“There’s enough people that are buying,” he said.

Having more farmers at the market doesn’t seem to be affecting their sales, Phillips said, because “each one brings something just a little bit different, they’re not really competing with one another.”

“The more we have the better off we are,” he said.

Consumers are helping to grow the produce selection at the market by buying from everyone, Phillips said.

“People are doing an excellent job of supporting our farmers,” he said.

Everything for dinner

Locals have started bringing more of what they grow in their backyard, including food, plants and herbs. Farmers from Orleans and Orick are bringing their produce (and more growers may be on their way in coming weeks). There’s fresh fish caught off Crescent City’s shores.

This is La Vonna Butz’s first year selling fresh herbs and herbal products at the Farmers Market.

“I’ve wanted to sell herbs my whole adult life,” she said about her dream to be “some sort of farmer.”

She likes herbs because they’re perennial and don’t require a lot of land and can be dried or put in oil so there’s no waste. Herbs can also be used in a variety of ways: medicinally, culinary and for fragrance, she said. All of Butz’s herbs are organic and she tries to stay “as local as I can” to keep prices down.

As La Vonna’s Herbals, Butz has fresh herbs, a healing salve, herbal tea and olive oil infused with herbs. She also has earthworm castings for compost.

Butz said she is pleasantly surprised how her products are being received at the market.

“I’m doing better than I thought,” she said, adding that people are excited about her products.

The market is turning more and more into a place to shop, Butz said, even for tourists who are camping and looking for dinner.

“We can supply them with almost everything they need for dinner,” she said.

Andrea Dahlberg has started bringing the plants she grows at home to sell at the market as Fancy Plants this year — she’s also sold her plants at the Wednesday Farmers Market downtown.

Gardening always been her passion.

“It’s a way to support my hobby of growing plants,” she said about selling her plants, which include a variety of succulents. “I have to do something with them.”

Made to be usable, lovable

More crafters have their work on display, including jewelry, hats, bags, driftwood benches, ceramic pots and pans, clocks and pull toys. But they have good and bad days, Phillips said.

Sometimes it takes shoppers a few trips to the market to look at some of the hand-crafted goods before they buy, he said.

And, it’s the unique things people can’t get anywhere else that sell, Phillips said. There are plenty of unique items made by locals for sale at the market. For examples, there’s the “redwood  Rorschachs,” pictures made of wood that depict whatever a viewer sees and trinket boxes also made of redwood.

New to the market are clocks made of pieces of redwood of different shapes and sizes from Chet O’Neill’s backyard. He also makes wooden pigs, fish and dinosaurs on wheels that are pulled by a string.

Making clocks and toys is his hobby. His friend said he should start bringing them to the market to sell.

“What I get out of it is a lot of compliments,” O’Neill said. “I don’t do it to make money.”

The clocks are made from “junk redwood” from his yard. Cross-cutting a log can produce a “real strange shape,” he said, that allows people to try and “find something in the wood.”

His “articulated toys,” as he calls them because they’re hard to describe, are a hobby, but have raised a lot of money, such as for the Senior Center years ago.

O’Neill’s wife Lynda paints the toy animals “to make them lovable,” he said, while “I make them to be usable.”

The Farmers Market will be open today and next Saturday in its usual spot during the county Fair from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.