September 29. 2016

Good morning, this email has been a long time coming. It has everything to do about our garden and nothing to do about gardening.

When we moved to Alpine from Central Oregon, we knew we would have a garden but we had no way of knowing how This garden would transform our lives. We only had plans for a kitchen garden until one day we found the Alpine Farmers Market in the back yard of Eve Trook's home. It was a very modest affair and we had a little surplus veggies so we decided to present our veggies for sale.

This act caused us to rethink our garden goals. This was also about the time that I got to thinking it would not be very difficult to garden year round. Back in Central Oregon, a “warm” sunny winters day might make 35 degrees. Here in Alpine 60 degree days with some freezing mornings is not uncommon. It was about this time that I also discovered floating row covers.

So this is how the whole farmers market thingy started. Really quite modestly to begin with but is a whole different show now.

The farmers market was a seasonal thing at Eve's but since I started to grow year round we started showing up every Saturday and shortly patrons realized there was a source for fresh veggies year round and began to show up.

As we got more involved with the farmers market it began to grow. And after several moves it has found it's final home.

On the outside this looks like folks getting together to sell their wares every Saturday Morning. It really has grown to be soooo much more than that.

It really has become our big social event of the week. For the vendors we are a cross section of the folks that share Alpine and the surrounding area as home. For our customers this is true also. It has become a place for folks from many different backgrounds can get together and just enjoy the day.

Deb and I feel there is a wonderful community that has developed with the Alpine Farmers Market. We are so grateful to be part of it. There is no way we could have possibly met many of these wonderful folks if it was not for the farmers market.

And the real cool thing none of this would have happened for Deb and I if it wasn't for a garden! The whole is so much bigger than the parts..