alafarmnews

At Pepper Place Farmers Market

Friendly ambience
flavors fresh produce
by Fran Sharp

Pick ’em in the morning, slice ’em up for supper was Southern style eating for decades as grow-it-yourself gardens were maintained just outside the back door of many Southern homes. Sadly, the tradition of backyard vegetables is a thing of the past for many consumers who not only miss the freshness, but the comfort value imbued in the from the soil to the sink ambience.

Pepper Place Farmers Market in Birmingham’s

By 10:30 a.m., most of the hydroponic leaf lettuce at Owls Hollow Farm is sold. The booth is popular not only because of 14-year-old Joshua Palmer’s expertise with a plastic sack as he prepares to sack his brother’s sale, but also their customers’ appreciation for the water-raised lettuce. Owls Hollow Farm is owned by the boys’ family in Gadsden.

Lakeside district offers a link with community to farmers that comes from direct dealing. Customers at the Saturday market feel it and so do the farmers who stock the booths.

Triple A Farm tomatoes
get high marks

A farmer for many years, Denny Armstrong at Hayden learned of the Market by word of mouth from other farmers who were truck farming near Birmingham. “We know selling retail in the city works not only for the farmers, but for customers. My daughters have earned college money for years by selling off the truck locally. This is our first year with the Market and we are very impressed,” Armstrong said.

Triple A Farm’s cool season greens, mustard, collards and cabbage, were welcomed by customers when the market season opened and they went fast. Adding tomatoes grown with calcium nitrate and veggies to his booth as the season progressed, Armstrong said he’s getting a real feel for the more unusual produce as well, picking up tips from local chefs and customers as to preferences.

“We grow from 5-10 acres in produce with seeds from specialty catalogs, local suppliers and our farmers market. Jerry Sterling was at the Co-op (Blount County Farmers Co-op) in Oneonta when I started buying and some of the first aquaintances the girls remember was at the farm stores. I still shop the Farmers Co-op stores in Oneonta or Cullman.”

The Palmers grow regular and fancy lettuces, including butterhead, green curly leaf, red leaf, oakleaf, and lollarosa, a pretty red lettuce that really brightens a salad bowl. Herbs for sale include three varieties of basil, including opal, genovese and lemon.

Palmer says hydroponic gardening is growing fast, no pun intended. “It’s high-tech in a low tech way and it’s not even new. One old guy at the market told me the other day that he was growing hydroponic stuff in World War I on a volcanic island for the government. It’s real interesting farming, it’s fun, and for lack of a better term, I’ve always liked weird stuff.”

Colorful squash, butter beans, pinto beans, pink-eyes, tomatoes and corn brighten the corner booth of the Caver Farm.

Caver Farm offers cooking tips

There’s nothing weird about a family business, says Michelle Cooper of Verbena. Ms. Cooper and her family have been at Pepper Place since the Market opened five years ago.

“We’re mostly known for our rattlesnake pole beans, pinkeye peas and tomatoes, she said. Like a lot of farmers we have to sell wholesale as well as retail to make the farm go, but retail is a lot more fun. Our daddy died last year and he always said, ‘Be good to

“We (vendors) may not know each others names, but we know each other’s family from working the booths and we ask about each other. It’s really been a joy getting to know the people. We make sure everything we bring is picked fresh the day before and freshly shelled out that morning. We’re shelling while we’re selling.”

That farmer-community connectivity is just what Cathy Crenshaw had in mind when she co-founded Pepper Place Farmers Market. Musicians, local restaurant fare and stores that occupy the former Dr. Pepper bottling plant enhance the street-market atmosphere.

“We have a public purpose that is three-fold,” she explained. “To build connectivity with community and farmers through interaction with the chefs who prepare the food at restaurants, the customers who take it to the home sink, and the non-profit groups who are on the grounds. We want to help farmers establish a customer base, and to help grow small, value-added food businesses.”

Value-added food businesses sounds like a marketing term and, well, it is. These are typically lower income start-up businesses such as Vittles, a jam and jelly group started at Pepper Place, as well as a cake business started by Lou Hambright in Greensboro. Both are expanding into national mail order sales; good examples of the Market acting as an incubator for small business and an assist in rebuilding the economy.

Warming to her topic, Crenshaw said, “People love to go to farmers markets. Strong relationships between the retail public markets and the smaller farmers help focus on southern food and southern culture, which people all over the world love. There’s real value in helping people understand what foods and cultures come through history. We’ve become chic. People everywhere are interested.”

So interested that the value of local markets is being looked at by the Ford Foundation’s Public Market Learning/Advisory Group through its Projects for Public Space initiative. By virtue of the innovative work by Crenshaw and Pepper Place, Crenshaw has accepted a place on the foundation’s board.

The group, locally and nationally will look at other public spaces to make the Market more accessible as cities revitalize and urban areas become more involved.

Jones Valley Urban Farm (JVUF) reconnects people to food

When JVUF, a non-profit organic farm and education center located in downtown Birmingham, became associated with Pepper Place Farmers Market, their outreach program grew at a most welcome rate.

Jones Valley Urban Farm offers herbs and fresh flowers as well as an opportunity for Alabama School of Fine Arts students to see their products go to grateful customers.

“It’s been an incredible resource for us and has helped proselytize our mission of literally reconnecting people to food with personal exposure and getting to know the products,” JVUF Manager Edwin Marty said. “It’s the final link in a circle we try to provide our students (Alabama School of Fine Arts organic farming class) with connecting to the community and serving as volunteers in a hands-on demonstration of organic farming techniques.

JVUF utilizes donated and/or rented land in three locations for its farms and supplies locally grown organic produce to the Birmingham Metropolitan area restaurants and farmers markets in addition to selling retail flowers, herbs, and vegetables at Pepper Place.

Ivey Young, the flower lady of Chelsea, gets up at first light on Fridays to start picking for the next day sales. She does it because it’s profitable, yes, but also because she loves the camaraderie among vendors and customers. “It’s a social time for me, too,” she says.

Her wares spring from her 50x100 foot annual garden, the wildflowers she grows along the road, and perennial beds around her house on property that has been in her family for years. As she prepared cuttings for a customer, Young said she loves to talk to with them about gardening and raising a family. Her young ones are too small to be picking, preferring to toddle alongside her. “Maybe later,” she smiled, when asked if she would put them to work.

Ivey Young of Cha-Rob Farm in Chelsea says the market’s family atmosphere inspires her to “van” her flowers in each week. “It’s a social time for me. I can’t be anywhere else on a Saturday morning.”

She shops too, usually sending her husband or mom out for vegetables, goat cheese, honey and bread while she mans the booth. “It’s hard work and some times I think, ‘I’ll skip a time,’ but then Saturday gets close and I get excited and wind up being a vendor every week. I bring more (flowers) than I think I can sell because it’s nice to have a few at the end to give to the people around me.”

The Pepper Place Saturday Market continues every Saturday until Sept. 27, from 7 a.m. to noon in the parking lot of Pepper Place on 2nd Avenue South between 28th and 29th streets in Birmingham. Located in the heart of the Lakeview District among its finest retail shops, designer showrooms and galleries, the Market features farm-fresh vegetables, organic produce, fresh flowers, baked goods and live cooking demonstrations by Birmingham’s best chefs. In 2003, visitors numbered 3,500 per week to about 60 booths.

Fran Sharp is a freelance writer from Alabaster.