Spring is certainly here throughout the Four States; it is prime time, farmers market season, including the spring kickoff at Webb Cities Farmer's Market at King Jack Park this weekend.
Stephanie Thomasma, President of the Farmers Market in Webb City, says that the size of the market increases by 1/3 this time of the season.
"So the market is open year-round on Saturday. We typically average year-round; we average about 22 vendors a week during the off-season. That's in the 20 to 25 vendor range, and then in the busy summer season, we've gotten closer to about. 35 vendors."
While the focus of the Farmers Market is produce, Stefanie says the market in Webb City has a wide variety of other vendors.
"We've been really excited to be able to open up to a more different variety of vendors in the area. So yeah, we've got a lot of hot food vendors that.
Make egg rolls and pupusas. We've got a great coffee vendor.
We've got a kombucha vendor, and then we've also got some really awesome baked goods and gluten-free options, vegan options, just whatever you are looking for, and you can find some version of it."
While many people only visit a Farmers Market when the weather warms up, the market in Webb City is open year around.
Stefanie says that in addition to more vendors being on hand this Saturday, there will also be a live cooking display, the historic streetcar will be running, and they'll be live music.
"We've been having a really, really wonderful year. Every month has kind of set a new record for us. It's been really great to have such consistency with our vendors who are there year. 2T's is one that stays with us year around. And we have a couple of other produce guys that can stay."
"But this is a really exciting time when we can start seeing some of our other seasonal produce vendors coming in. As the week's progress, we will see their tables get fuller and fuller with all kinds of amazing produce. So it is a really exciting time."
Stefanie says that the Spring kickoff is so large that Mayor Lynn Ragsdale will be there to start the selling day officially.
"So this Saturday, we are going to have we have the mayor ringing our bell. And if you haven't been to the market before, every Saturday before you can start purchasing for anybody can start selling you, we have to wait until 9:00 o'clock when the bell rings.
So we wanted to have a kind of ceremonial ringing of the bell to ring in the new season. Get the market kicked off. So we're really excited to have the Mayor there. We're also going to be having a bunch of parked games. So it's like. Giant Jenga and things for kids to do."
"We're going to start preparing the raised beds in our garden for the summer. So we have master gardener Eric Olson, coming to help demonstrate. How to prepare a raised bed for planting, and then we also have face painting with one of our vendors she will be offering through the summer. That's going to be a nice feature for kids.
"And then we've got live music in the pavilion, which is something we always have at the market, but we're excited to have Nathan Roberts performing this weekend. Then we will also have a cooking demo in our pavilion with one of our really wonderful volunteers and board members Jack Lonardo."
