Farmers market kicks off June 17
Published 5:00 pm Tuesday, June 3, 2008
The farmers who are participating at the Cannon Beach Farmers Market beginning June 17 have a philosophy about what they produce.
Autumn Doss, of Elsie, says growing vegetables and herbs in her 100-foot by 100-foot garden plot and her green house is “something I have to do.”
“I know exactly where the food comes from, what’s in it. I know it’s grown and produced in a sustainable, loving fashion. That energy goes into you, too; it makes you healthier, and the environment around you is healthier. Plus, it’s fun.”
Doss is one of 14 vendors who have been approved by the farmers market advisory committee to sell their products at the market. The market will be open from 2 to 6 p.m. Tuesdays on the City Hall parking lot in midtown from June 17 through Sept. 30.
Products to be sold range from salad greens, vegetables, edible flowers, herbs, berries, salad dressings, baked
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goods, grass-fed beef and lamb, “pastured” poultry and cheeses.
Born in Sweet Home, Ore. and reared in rural Arkansas, Doss grew up around gardens.
“We had a huge garden that fed the whole family – there were five kids,” Doss said.
She returned to Oregon 10 years ago to visit a friend and ended up staying. “I just loved it; it agreed with me.”
Five years ago she bought the three-acre farm in Elsie and has been farming ever since. She will sell a wide range of produce, from salad greens, peas, onions, beets and garlic in June to tomatoes, potatoes, summer squash, heirloom Italian zucchinis in July and August and pumpkins and winter squash in September.
While Doss is just beginning her first market, Jeff Trenary, of Kingfisher Farms in Nehalem, has been selling at farmers markets for 12 years. He also supplies restaurants in Portland and prepares boxes of produce for 50 customers in the Community Supported Agriculture program.
Trenary has been farming nearly 20 years. He grew up on a dairy farm and had relatives who grew grapes and berries, and his grandmother always had a market garden.
“I have this feeling everybody needs to be in service to humanity,” said Trenary, who grows vegetables on his 20-acre farm in Nehalem. “I do that by growing the best food I can and offering to the community.
“I’m also an independent person, and I always come back to owning my own business.”
Trenary sells at the markets in Astoria, Manzanita and Tillamook. Farmers markets, he said, are the “most profitable way to make a living. You can charge the full market price and cut out the middle man.”
Produce sold to restaurants usually goes for a 20 to 30 percent discount, he added.
“There are a lot of farmers markets in Oregon and they have saved a lot of farmers in Oregon,” Trenary said.
Although he is concerned that the Cannon Beach market won’t be offering any prepared food, which usually draws customers, Trenary expects the market will be as popular as the Manzanita farmers market.
At OK Ranch in Bay City, Doug and Mary Lee have a mission statement.
“We want to raise good food in a sustainable way and share the benefit of that with good friends,” said Doug Lee. “We also want to share information about sustainable farming with our friends.”
They raise cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys on their 30-acre farm on the Miami River.
“We allow our cows to be cows, the pigs to be pigs and the chickens to be chickens. We raise our birds and animals on pasture where they get lots of fresh air and sunlight,” the Lees said in a description of their farm to the farmers market advisory committee.
The pasture hasn’t been exposed to artificial fertilizers or chemicals for eight years, and the animal feed is locally produced, free of antibiotics, growth hormones and animal byproducts, Doug Lee said.
“We are not organically certified, but the pastures would qualify,” he added. “We raise the animals as much as we can on grass. They are ‘pasture-ized’; we have coined that word.”
Farming is in Doug Lee’s blood: His father was a farmer, and his grandfather farmed. Lee has a degree in agriculture and food science and he spent his career in food science.
The Lees sold their meat at the Manzanita market last year and say they are excited about coming to Cannon Beach.