Local farmers’ markets spring to life
By Pat Stinson
Sun contributor
Glen Arbor and Empire farmers’ markets offer much more than you might imagine.
For starters, each sells the best berry ever to top a shortcake. And that’s just on opening day.
Glowing beneath market canopies during my visit in mid-June are plump, sweet strawberries. Quarts and quarts of them in their cute, cardboard suits.
Dan and Jonathan Mustard, of Maple City, grow and sell their own produce. It’s a little early for their harvest, so they are helping farmer friends sell strawberries at the Empire market, next to the post office. The bright-red berries catch the eyes of passersby, such as Joe Scharbat, who stopped in town for a haircut, checked out the market, and left with a bag of berries.
A few days later, behind Glen Arbor’s township hall, Jim Shorter sits steadfast in his strawberry booth during heavy rains. Vendors around him frantically pack, and customers flee in the freakish storm. A farm-market veteran, Shorter will wait out the weather. (The storm passes in 20 minutes.) He rents a booth in Glen Arbor each year, as he has since the market began. You may be familiar with his farm stand on M-72, east of County Road 667, where he lives and grows the vegetables he sells each summer and fall.
“Word is out what a great market this is,” he says, explaining that, in his opinion, Glen Arbor has one of the best audiences. “Almost 30 people called to ask about it.”
By the time you read this, the early glow strawberries will be finished, but ever-bearing varieties will produce later harvests — and there’s more to be found in the markets as summer progresses.
Dave McDonald knows just how diverse the offerings are. He acts as Market Manager for three farmers’ markets and reviews vendor applications in his position as coordinator for the Leelanau Farmers Market Association (LFMA). Empire and Glen Arbor belong to the organization, which has a board and paid, part-time market managers.
A vendor himself (Bare Naked Soap Company, of Lake Leelanau), McDonald knows, for instance, that the Glen Arbor farmers’ market had 32 vendors on June 19, opening day. He says that early in the season the ratio is 50/50 fresh foods and a “diverse” mix of cottage-industry foods, commercially processed foods (such as soup mixes or baked goods by Nine Bean Rows, the latter available at the Glen Arbor market) and crafts or handmade items. As produce ripens in the next couple of weeks, that percentage will tip in favor of farmers’ fresh produce. Whether food or crafts, the items must have been grown or made within 60 miles of the markets.
“The number of vendors is really growing,” he explains. “The new Michigan Cottage Food Law — it’s a great way for people to make some money. It’s really becoming popular.”
McDonald refers to the state’s 2010 law that allows people to sell, directly to consumers, certain foods they produce in their homes. Items must be “non-potentially hazardous foods that don’t require time and/or temperature control for safety,” (Michigan State University, Product Center). Some of those items include breads, cakes, fruit pies, cookies, dried herbs and dried-herb mixes, popcorn, chocolate-covered items, cotton candy, and jams and jellies in glass jars needing no refrigeration. Specific storage and labeling requirements must also be met, under the law.
At the Empire market, one example of a cottage-made food is Vanola Granola, by Carol Vanderberg. Using gluten-free, organic and natural ingredients, she creates plain, “Barenaked Granola” and granola bars with names like “North Bar,” with dried cherries; “South Bar,” with dates; “Sand Bar,” with raisins; and “Monkey Bar,” with coconut and banana. She also bakes molasses cookies from her Great-Aunt Jen’s recipe, and she says her scones sell quickly in flavors such as lime-blueberry, orange-cranberry and lemon-ginger.
Other vendors making items at home to sell are the handcrafters, many of them jewelers, according to McDonald. Shanti Jewelers, of Traverse City, offers Petoskey stone jewelry and is one of several craft vendors in the Glen Arbor market. In Empire, Jan Sikorski sells — in addition to fresh produce from her garden cart — recycled afghans and “Peace Bears,” previously-loved, stuffed bears given a vigorous bath and new clothes, and bearing a message of peace.
Market mainstays, however, are the fresh foods. On opening day, farmers bring the usual cold-weather and early crops — but there are some surprises waiting to be taste-tested.
At the Glen Arbor market, Matt and Carissa Visser, of Isadore Farm in Cedar, offer early-harvested organic veggies — green garlic, lettuce greens, arugula, radishes, kohlrabi — and fresh eggs. Across the tree-lined square, the smile on newcomer Karen Olmsted’s face is like a beacon in the rain. She and her husband, Craig, own Leelanau Piedmontese Beef, and offer various cuts from Italian cattle they raise on 10 acres in Northport and 60 acres near Charlotte. Olmstead explains that the breed, around for 25,000 years, carries a myostatin gene that produces double muscling for naturally leaner and tender beef. She says that while other breeds must be grain fed to produce the muscling, theirs eat grass from various pastures on a rotating basis, which produces award-winning steer with flesh as lean as a buffalo’s.
At Empire’s market, Dana Boomer Skrzypczak of Still Point Farm, on M-72 and Gilbert Rd., sells naturally and organically grown vegetables. Her early harvest includes herbs, salad greens, braising mix and rhubarb. On this day, she also offers herb baskets, flowers, maple syrup, goat’s milk soap and hand-knitted dish towels. Her father, John Boomer, supplies the maple syrup, his wintertime project for the last 15 years. Syrup lovers take note: Due to lower sap yields the last two seasons, it’s likely their maple syrup will be sold out by mid fall. The soap she sells is made by her mother, using milk from a small herd of dairy goats, and her grandmother knitted the dish towels.
Skrzypczak, 23, grew up helping her parents on their farm and worked as a teenager at various farms and nurseries. She is a part-time farmer who would like to transition to full time. This year’s weather — which wiped out the family’s annual crop of cherries, peaches, apricots and pears — did not dissuade her. She will have raspberries to sell, and blueberries from another farm. However, she explains that the majority of the family’s income is from the cherries they sell to processors. When asked what farming activities take place when there’s no fruit, she replies:
“In the orchards, we’re spraying, mowing and pruning. The work still has to be done, even though there’s no fruit on the trees. If you can’t handle that, then you shouldn’t be a farmer, because northern Michigan pretty much throws everything at you.”
Empire vendor Sikorski echoes the weather sentiment.
“It’s really weather dependent, but we’re lucky because we have a local post office that is still open and we’re blessed that a lot of Empire people go to the post office and as they walk by we say, ‘Hey,” and we wave.”
Meet Empire’s new Market Master
Rae Lewis serves coffee in the grassy space between Empire’s post office and surf shop and looks around at the small circle of market vendors.
“I would love to see more veggie and fruit vendors,” she says, sharing her vision of making Empire’s market “the place to be.”
Lewis was recently hired part time, filling the gap left by Reuben and MaryAnn Chapman, who ran the Empire farmers’ market as volunteers for 12 or more years, until their retirement last year. MaryAnn still serves as recording secretary for the Leelanau Farmers Market Association.
“We retired and kept our fingers crossed, and the two markets so far were doing well,” MaryAnn Chapman says. “Today (June 23), it was just flourishing.”
She adds that the position does not offer much compensation, so Empire was “lucky enough” to hire Lewis, a Leelanau School graduate who returned to work as a dormitory parent and in admissions.
“She’s just neat,” Chapman enthuses.
Lewis adopted another project, the school greenhouse, and teaches students about sustainability. According to Chapman, Lewis also founded a school recycling program and encourages students to use it and the greenhouse.
“I moved up last year, because I wanted to be a farmer,” Lewis explains, describing her experience working and volunteering at Sweeter Song and Birch Point, two area CSA farms.
“This is my first day; I’m just getting to know how everything works,” she adds. “It’s great to have this time. Everyone’s so friendly and chilled.”