Just because it’s winter, that doesn’t mean the Farmer’s Market closes. Instead, some vendors choose to move inside of the Market on East State Street.
Starting this Saturday, a majority of the Athens Farmers Market vendors will be moving inside.
From the first Saturday in December to March 3, many of the vendors move inside to the Market on East State, in the main aisle near the Elder Beerman store. The Wednesday Market will continue through the month of December.
Kip Parker, the manager of the market, said there are usually 15 to 20 vendors located inside depending on the weather, but many of the vendors stay in their regular spot year-round — in the parking lot in front of the mall.
Parker said the market has been using the indoor mall for four or five years and many of the winter sellers are bakers and other vendors with prepared food.
Mitch Meadows, owner of Mitch’s Produce & Greenhouse in Middleport, has been coming to the Athens Farmer’s Market for 18 years and said that he stays outside year-round.
“Usually (in the winter) we do the sweet potatoes, onions, cabbages, squashes and stuff like that,” Meadows said. “We’re getting ready for the poinsettias.”
For many of the produce sellers, winter items are similar.
“We prepare for winter sales through growing a lot of tubers and storage items like carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, winter squash and red potatoes,” said Richard Vest, who has been coming to the market for between 15 and 20 years with Vest’s Berries in Stewart, Ohio. “We have a good market year-round. I go inside. I like my warmth and I think my customers do, too.”
Parker said there is still a strong number of visitors in the winter but not quite as many as in the summer.
“It dies down some because there’s not as many vendors, not as many produces,” Parker said. “(For the winter market) there’s close to 800 to 1,000 people. There’s about 2,500 on a Saturday in the summer.”
He also said that there isn’t much difference from the number of visitors when students are gone from Athens during winter break.
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