Farmers Markets - Part 1

            The first Saturday in May is a day I look forward to each year because that is when the Farmers Markets open up for the season. I enjoy the Farmers Market for several reasons. First, it lets me know that summer is coming. After a cold and rainy winter, it is inspiring to see healthy plants lined up in black pots; knowing that only a few months previously, they were seeds. Gazing at bunches of fresh picked lettuce and parsley makes me question why I have not taken the time or effort to cultivate my own bunches of fresh produce. I am often reminded of the people who lived before supermarkets. At the end of a long winter with only small apples and wrinkly potatoes from the root cellar left, I am certain that the sight of leafed out lettuce was greatly appreciated.

            Another thing I enjoy about going to the Farmers Market is the instant camaraderie felt there. You can walk up to any booth, initiate a conversation and soon it seems like you are visiting with a life-long friend. I went to two Farmers Markets the first day of the season both in smaller towns with several booths each. At the first Market the merchants were cheery and had tables filled with goods however, it was not a typical spring morning. Instead, it was pouring down rain, causing the fire in the middle of the Market to smolder. The cold, wet weather did not hinder the man selling peppers, and tomato plants though. As my husband and I asked him about his plants, he knew each variety extremely well – how large each one would eventually grow and how soon they would produce fruit. As we chose the mixture of plants we wanted, the man at the booth carefully picked out plants that were healthy and straight with no wilted leaves. He gently loaded our plants into a box top as the rain poured on their leaves. As we walked away with our carefully selected plants my husband made the comment that the plants we were holding were the man at the Markets’ children, as he knew each one very well and had spent the past few months carefully tending them and watching them grow.

            The second Farmers Market I went to was small as well and by then the rain had stopped but had been replaced by a fierce wind that whipped around the edges of the coverings the merchants stood under. Here I visited with the sellers; first with an older, quiet gentleman who sold me a rosemary plant. He described how his wife used the herb in cooking and how to keep my plant protected during the extremely rainy weather we had been having. Another lady was passionate about tomatoes. I could have asked her about varieties of tomatoes for hours and she would have known every detail.

            It seems that farmers in the New World who shared plants between their friends and neighbors would have also known their plants well. They would want to be familiar with how well each variety could best be preserved through the winter. They would also want to be acquainted with when the plant produced so as to have a continual supply of food during the warmer months of the year. Herbs would also be important plants to acquire since their colonial homes did not have shelves filled with little plastic jars with red lids containing numerous spices to flavor food. This time of the year their food was fresh and favorable and a joy to eat.

Seed Catalogs

This time of year, in my part of the world, Mother Nature gives a few teases before springtime is fully here.  Between all the rainy days, there are times filled with bright sun when the buds and bulbs begin to bloom.  However, I have learned that these sunny days do not mean it is time to plant seeds in my raised beds quite yet.  I have fallen to this temptation before and it results in the extremely slow growth of my small plants or moldy seeds in the furrows of soil.  One thing that helps me to be patient a little longer is the seed catalogs that come to my mailbox around this time.  Their pages are filled with pictures of colorful, healthy vegetables and descriptions of each seed that make me want to purchase the entire catalog.  When I finally narrow down my list and make an order from one of the catalogs, the seeds and plants I purchase usually have a money back guarantee or a replacement policy if the plants fail to thrive.

Another way I get seeds in the mail is by exchanging them with my sister.  We live hundreds of miles apart so each of us carefully pluck and dry seeds from our own flower gardens, vegetable gardens of even our neighbor’s yards.  Recently we have been exchanging heirloom seeds for many vegetables we have grown.  When I carefully sow the seeds my sister sends me, I feel obligated to tell her how my plants are doing, if they have grown, how tall they are, and if they are flowering.

My gardens are a hobby and a minor supplement to our food budget. However, in the past, gardens filled with vegetables and fruit trees were much more vital to the settlers that so carefully planted, tended and harvested them in the New World; these early colonists planted gardens to survive. When they received plants and seeds from overseas they did not come with a money-back guarantee but with a letter about the plants and seeds and an admonition to report back on their growth and progress; much like the exchange that occurs between my sister and I.

Transporting plants between gardens was much more precarious in the 1600s.  Jeremias van Rensselaer was the director of the town of Rensselaerswijck in the colony of New Netherland.  He had come from Holland and still had family there.  Van Rensselaer had grown sassafras trees in New Netherland and wanted to send some plants back to his uncle Jan Baptist.  Uncle Jan received the plants that were sent and they arrived in wooden tubs after their voyage on a ship across the Atlantic Ocean.  For Uncle Jan, only one of the two trees arrived as the other one had gone overboard.  He requested that more be sent each year since he had success in growing them in the Netherlands and he had “made good friends with them” (Piwonka, 420). 

In letters written in the 1660 between Uncle Jan and Jeremias they discuss wars, business affairs, concerns of the colony of New Netherland and information about the condition of their gardens.  A particular delivery from Uncle Jan was sent in a wooden tub filled with plants and delivered by a servant.  In his letter to Jeremias, Uncle Jan described the contents of the wooden tub: “at the bottom there are several layers [destroyed text] plants, between the layers of soil there are all sorts of seeds of apples, pears, plums, sour cherries, apricots, nuts and chestnuts . . . on top, sticking out of the soil there is a stately carnation plant, a fine laurel bush and a rose bush.  I am also sending all sorts of seeds wrapped in paper” (Piwonka, 420-21).

The effort necessary to transport plants and seeds back and forth across the ocean is impressive.  One can only imagine that after making it that far, that a plant or a handful of seeds would be carefully tended since there was no guarantee that another would successfully make the voyage across the oceans.

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Piwonka, Ruth “ . . . and I have made good friends with them: Plants and the New Netherland Experience” New York History (Fall 2008), 397-425.