“This has been a great turnout,” Sapulpa Main Street Director Cindy Lawrence said on Saturday, May 1st, the opening day for the Sapulpa Main Street Route 66 Farmers Market.
Lawrence says they have around ten new vendors during this, their sixth year of operation, and though the Courthouse parking lot was crowded with vendors and customers, not everyone was able to be there yet, as local farmers wait for their produce to ripen enough for harvest. “Probably by about June 1st, we’ll really have a lot of produce,” Lawrence said. “There are people who will say that you’re not a real farmers market until you have tomatoes,” she laughed.
While seasonal fruits and vegetables aren’t yet ready, there was no shortage of things to browse, ask about or buy at Saturday’s market. Everything from soaps to baked goods, to aprons and pot holders to a new rising sensation called “micro-greens” was available for the season opener.
New vendors include “Roost 66 Funny Farm,” An operation owned by Ariana Savage, a senior at Mingo Valley Christian, which she runs with help from her sister Ashley Savage, who is heading for ORU. The farm for Roost 66 boasts bunnies, a single pig and almost 200 chickens. Ariana says that experience so far has been great.
The vendors at the market seem to be a part of a self-sustaining local economy of their own: The Savage sisters were wearing aprons from Linens by Linda, just two booths down, and earrings from another booth on the corner. Later, their mother came and told them she was ordering a sign from another vendor across the parking lot.
The philosophy is a microcosm of the larger ideal the market hopes to fill—a self-sustaining community that feeds that success back into the city.
The Farmers Market is open on Saturdays, now through the fall, from 7:30am to 11:00am. And yes, stuff sells out quick!
