go with the flow

For Dishing the Dirt I get much of my inspiration from the market and current events, but every now and then my fellow vendors come to me with ideas and issues. Last week not one, not two, but five different vendors vented their frustrations on me and suggested I write about it. Trust me, I understand every single one of the growing challenges they encountered that led them to their chats with me. While their grievances ranged from petty annoyances to serious safety concerns, I take each and every one of them seriously and would like to share them with readers this week.

I know the appeal of a farmer’s market, of knowing your producer not just as the anonymous person who rings up your weekly groceries, but as somebody who greets and treats you like a friend. You get to know them week after week, month after month, and year after year. You like to visit, to catch up, but with the markets becoming busier as summer grows closer sometimes we just don’t have the time to talk. Sunday is about the only day of the week I get to interact with human beings and I am guilty of making customers I do not know wait for a few minutes while I finish my transaction and my conversation with a regular. I know you are there and waiting, but I am going to take the extra 30 seconds to examine a fellow fiber enthusiasts latest knitting project or explain how to cook Ossobuco to a budding gastronomist. However, if there is a line and there is a crowd, let’s keep the conversation at a minimum and wait for a slow day to catch up. No, you have not offended me or done something wrong, I’m just trying to conduct business.

Thanks to the pandemic, the market got in the habit of having customers queue up outside of the market prior to 9:00 AM. This resolved a lot of frustration many of the vendors felt as customers would sometimes show up an hour early and pressure the vendors into selling. This issue has resulted in some downright ugly confrontations over the years and the vendors have all welcomed the relief of being able to prepare for our day without interruption. During this time many of the vendors also shop. If you are a customer and have been asked to wait outside of the market until it opens, please don’t respond with, “Why are you selling to them?” They are a vendor, that’s why. If we waited until the end of the day, especially on a busy day when much is sold out and picked over, we’d go home empty-handed. We don’t attend one of the premier farmers markets in the mid Atlantic to go shop  at a grocery store for food.

More important than relieving the vendors of being badgered to sell early, asking patrons to wait until the market opens to enter is a safety reason. I cannot stress this enough. As vendors, we are used to the movement of tables, tents, and vehicles. We know when a vendor is slotting into their space and when to keep clear. We are on a timetable and will get impatient at the cute couple casually walking their dog up the center aisle at 8:00 AM oblivious to the line of vehicles needing to get into the heart of the market.

While we are on the issue of safety, another problem has been festering and that is patrons who cut behind stands and between vendors’ vehicles to move about the market. Yes, the market aisles have become crowded with people, especially on lovely days as the availability of seasonal produce increases. We go to great lengths as vendors to create the best possible flow of traffic for a crowded market. Take a good look at the larger busy market stands and you will see they have created a setup that allows people to shop and then funnels them into a checkout area. Similarly, the people who work at busy stands are like a well oiled crew on the line at a busy restaurant. They know how to move around each other while carrying crates of produce, how to squeeze in and replace the empty bags and how to replenish their goods for sale and samples. But when an unknown person walks behind the tables, especially behind the cash box during a rush, prepare to be hustled out of there with a terse warning not to walk behind the tables or between the vehicles. Vendors have empty crates, boxes of damaged produce, and their own items they have purchased that morning in those areas and they are not for sale. If items are behind a truck or in a truck, they are not there for customers to pick up and attempt to buy. Last week a customer took a flat of strawberries from the back of a vendor’s truck and attempted to purchase them despite that stand not selling strawberries. They belonged to the farmers who had purchased them that morning. Would you go to the grocery store, go into the back room and root around? I don’t think so. Please offer the same courtesy to your vendors at the farmers market.

It's not just the vendor stands that have been set up to facilitate flow, but the entire market. We do our best to maintain smooth foot traffic as well as multiple places where patrons can linger as they enjoy a cup of coffee and a pastry after their weekly shopping, where they can visit with their neighbors, or hang out during children’s activities. The middle of one of the major arteries at the market and in front of vendor stands is not the place to hang out. Last week I watched as five adults with three children (one in a stroller) and two dogs congregated for nearly 15 minutes while blocking access to two stands and took up half of the aisle. Fortunately, I didn’t have to be the one to tell them to move along. Another gaggle of parents with kids in strollers collided in an attempt to pass and broke up the party.

Every single week your farmers have to deal with the traffic on 495 and 270 to get here. We know that anyone who lives in this area is familiar with how quickly roadways can snarl. Remember that the farmers market is like a mini freeway and when you don’t obey the rules of traffic accidents happen and the flow slows down. You won’t get a ticket for not following these simple rules of courtesy, but if one of the vendors or market personnel point out your errors realize we’re doing it for your safety as well as our sanity.