Archive: Around Town

Between the ball games, chicken barbecue, can and bottle drive, and farmer's market there wasn't enough room to park around the Lansing Town Hall Saturday.  It was the first day of the Farmer's Market, and organizers were very pleased with the turnout.

"I'm just so happy this finally came to fruition," says Lansing Deputy Supervisor Connie Wilcox.  "It's been three years in the works.  We were planning on five to seven vendors and we've got 19, so we're just ecstatic."

Booths and tents lined up in front of the Town Hall, along the lebgth of the parking lot all the way to the Community Center.  Vendors had local produce and crafts, and the Lansing Community Council had a table where they sold T-shirts and bags with this year's Harbor Festival logo on them.


"The summer crop of raspberries is winding down, but we have plenty of great rhubarb right now," said Morrow Creek Farm's Dan Konowalow.  "We also have my wife's quilts."

Konowalowsays he and his wife Marcy Rosenkrantz will sell at the market for as long as it runs this year.  Their farm produces about ten varieties of tomatoes, eight or ten varieties of peppers, cucumbers, tomatillo, salsa, pumpkins, and raspberries.

Take Your Pick Flowers' Linda VanApeldoorn said she was very happy with the turnout Saturday.  "I've thought a farmers market would be a great idea for years," she said.  "Even before I started selling flowers I thought it would be great."


VanApeldoorn and Konowalow, Keith and Sarah Thompson, Lynn Day, and Kathie Miller make up the board of directors, and most of them had booths Saturday.

"You've got to give all the credit to Connie," Konowalow  says.  "She's been working on this for three years.  She put the extra push on this Spring and got some people together.  There were a few of us, but then she got some advertising out and all of a sudden we got 14 additional vendors.  It is a nice nucleus."

The market will be at the Town Hall every Saturday through October as the weather holds out.  Wilcox says that on August 15th it will move for one day to Myers Park to be part of the Lansing Harbor Festival.

Everything has to be produced locally.  A set of rules specify that vendors only sell products they raise or make themselves, with very narrow exceptions.  They also say that prices should be displayed prominently, and that customers must be treated courteously and in a non-discriminatory manner.  Fees for sellers are waived this year to encourage local farmers and craftspeople to participate.  That clearly worked as participation tripled on the first day.  A 20th vendor has signed on for this weekend.


"We hope this is going to continue to grow," Wilcox says.  "It's a great community event.  There are lots of good fruits, vegetables, flowers, ice cream, coffee... you name it we have it."

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