Despite the CUPE strike, and despite Councillor Gignac’s lone vote against allowing this market, the result was a great success!
A dedicated group of organizers and volunteers worked their asses off to make sure this went off as well as it did. Work started late Friday night a little before midnight, with prep work underway to ensure everything was set for the vendors early morning arrival.
The nice thing about the market was that it was local Essex county farmers. Bradley’s Potatoes from Cottam can been seen on the left, on the right you can see Chris Edwards and the Walkerville Press booth, with copies of their excellent local history book “The Best of the Times Magazine”.
Local flour was also on sale. Chana Foods on the right (http://www.chanafoodproducts.com/), and Thibert Farms (http://www.thethibertfarm.com/) on the left.
By the time I got there at 10:30, Thibert was sold out of his flour. I bought a bag from Chana Foods, who I’ve purchased from before. Visit their store on County Rd. 42 and see the flour mill. The flour I bought was milled July 2nd. Try buying flour that was milled a few days ago at the grocery store….
Lots of people there, the vendors were all selling lots of product, many were almost sold out by noon. I ran into Councillor Halberstadt there, who biked in from his South Walkerville home. I hope he wasn’t the only member of Council to attend. Kudos to the Councillor for getting out and helping to support the market.
The only complaint is that we need more bike racks!
If you missed it, make sure to check it out next Saturday, and every Saturday, rain or shine through October 10th. Obviously shop early for the best selection, but I’m sure vendors will have more of their wares next week…
It’s great to see the return of a downtown farmers’ market. I just wish they were open at least one day during the week for people who work downtown.
Great market! I hope the word gets out to more people across the city to come and enjoy local produce and fruit. Maybe by seeing this success (was it ever packed!) more farmers might want to also take part.
I know I will be there next Saturday will you?
Thanks to the DWBIA, City of Windsor, the volunteers and especially to those who came out to support this. As James T stated perhaps next year it can be expanded.
I’ve heard that no other councilors made it. Too bad. We must have just missed you as we were near the potatoes chatting with other bloggers/photographers before splitting up just before 11. I thought it strange that you weren’t there!
I agree with you about the racks. A lot of people rode their bikes there, but had nowhere to lock their bikes. But I’m sure something can be done. Alan Halberstadt even rode his bike there too. I guess we missed you though. I was there with Paul from wespeak and John.
ME: More than one day may be too expensive for the vendors. Right now booth prices are very high and if you add a staff cost to that, you would have to sell a metric assload of product to make a profit (plus gas, plus time away from your actual business).
I thought the market was just great, especially considering its “infancy” stage…
Seeing the pictures from other attendees, we definitely should have gone earlier though! When we arrived, the farmers were sold out of many of the things I was hoping to pickup – BUT still got some great, fresh stuff and will continue to go every week and spend some cash to support our local farmers and community.
Nothing beats eating local!
Yeah, I was a little slow out the door. We got there about 10:30-ish… I must have just missed most of you. I did run into Alan, so I wasn’t too late.
Darren, as for the bikes, we noticed there was an unused bike rack behind Westcourt place as well, on Chatham, just west of Goyeau.
We ended up locking our bikes to the giant cements slabs. Many of them had a metal handle, I assume for a crane to pick them with a hook (you can see it in the second last photo). Cable lock worked just fine there…
As for what Vicky noted about the rental prices, that will kill this market faster than anything else.
What’s the rental prices then?
David, info within:
http://www.downtownfarmersmarket.ca/FarmersMarketApplicationForm.pdf
I think john and i left around 1030 or 11 so must of just missed you. A lot of things would of been sold out by the time you got there. There’s always the fence on the other side of the market where the vehicles were. Then fence around the ventilation structure. Bikes could be locked there. I was sitting on one of the cement blocks most of the time with John and Paul and people were putting their bikes next to them too. : )
It’s about time that Windsorites got off their collective butts and made something exciting happen downtown. A downtown farmer’s market is long overdue and it will provide a lot of employment opportunities to folks who are getting by. Even CUPE’s reign of terror won’t keep the people of Windsor down for long!
Off topic question – Does anyone remember a place called the “Melody Grill” ?
It was frequented by the kids at Patterson High School (now long gone itself).
Anyway, Melody had great fries – amongst other food items.
Any memories? Photos? etc?
I wonder why coucilor gignac would be the lone decenter not voting on allowing the market maybe because the city doesn’t get a kick back
A downtown farmers market what a novel idea, create lots of jobs ect. George Windsor had a market in the same area as the old bus station for years. If a market was such a good thing how come it moved to Walker & Ottawa St? Their was no big effort to keep it downtown, no alternate sites, so it moved, probabliy to a better location.
As a market how many tenants are true producers? The only one I can think of is Simpsons Orchards from Leamington, operated by Eugene Simpson.
The way things are going they should relocate the city market to the East side next to the WFCU arena. Perhaps thecity has worked or is working adeal on building the new city hall on vacant former Lear property… just kidding!!!