Farmers' Markets in New Brunswick

[00:00:02] I am Mark the New Brunswick Traveler and here we talk about New Brunswick

[00:00:09] stuff. There's so many great wonderful treasures and natural resources here

[00:00:15] that we can experience from the Bay of Fundy to Mount Carlton to all of the

[00:00:21] various things that are in between. So for now let's get started. I'm here

[00:00:29] with Faye Gorm today. She's the manager, I guess you would call it, of the

[00:00:37] Brundage Point River Center Market and they're gonna be opening I guess on the

[00:00:44] 23rd of May this year. There are some markets in New Brunswick that are

[00:00:51] year-round. There's one in Moncton that's every Saturday year-round and

[00:00:56] there's also the Boyce Market up in Fredericton that's year-round. But most

[00:01:02] of our farmers markets and community markets are opening up in May or in

[00:01:07] some cases not till the middle of June. So Faye is known as the Pickle Lady.

[00:01:13] So Faye what is it that makes you known as the Pickle Lady? All the

[00:01:19] pickles I do I guess. I've been doing pickles now for about 22 years

[00:01:23] and people just seem to like my pickles. They all decided, my girlfriend

[00:01:29] said you should call yourself the Pickle Lady. So it just went from there.

[00:01:33] So what kind of pickles are popular in New Brunswick? Oh Lady Ashburn's,

[00:01:39] Beets and Chow. They're the three main ones. Okay. You know I mean I make

[00:01:46] everything. I make mustard and I make gluten-free and bread and butter.

[00:01:50] I grew up in Indiana and my mother made some really good bread and butter

[00:01:55] pickles. That's what got me started on the bread and butter pickles. I'll have

[00:01:59] to give you a bottle before you go and see what you think. Now you've got

[00:02:04] that on tape so you're gonna have to come up with it. So tell me a

[00:02:09] little bit about the market. I know you're opening on the 23rd. How easy

[00:02:14] is it for somebody to begin to sell over there at the market if they

[00:02:18] want to? Well just give me a call and I find out what they're selling and then I

[00:02:24] just book them in. I try to have it so that there's no more than two

[00:02:30] of each thing because as a vendor, I've been a vendor for a lot of years, 25,

[00:02:36] 28 years at other markets and I find that if you have too many of one

[00:02:42] thing the vendor doesn't sell as much. Whereas if you only

[00:02:47] got a couple of people selling they're gonna either sell out or pretty near

[00:02:51] sell out. So they're gonna make money that day. So that's my goal is that

[00:02:56] the vendors that come to our market will make some money. You know they're

[00:03:00] not gonna just come there and sit and not make anything. They're gonna

[00:03:04] make their money and that's been my goal right from day one. Some

[00:03:08] people don't like the idea that I don't let just everybody in but you've

[00:03:12] got, right now we've got two people that sell bread and rolls. Well that's

[00:03:15] enough. You don't need four or five people selling bread and rolls because

[00:03:19] that person's not gonna sell out. You know they cook and cook hard and they

[00:03:25] make all this baking and to come and take half of it home, that's no fun

[00:03:31] and what do they do with it? So I like it that wherever they bake and

[00:03:35] they bring then they're gonna sell it so they're not gonna be lugging

[00:03:39] at home. So I understand that your market is a little unique and different

[00:03:44] from what we call farmers markets because in a farmers market they either

[00:03:49] have to have created it themselves or they have to have grown it. So you

[00:03:54] have some products there that are as you mentioned Avon or other types of

[00:03:59] things like that. So what are some of the unique products that you have

[00:04:03] there at the market? Well I have a lady she does the Avon but she

[00:04:08] also does walk-in products which everyone loves walk-ins and then we

[00:04:12] have I have a lady coming this year with pottery which is something that's

[00:04:17] gonna be unique to see because we've never had pottery there. We've got a

[00:04:20] lady coming that she paints and does her own cards you know she makes the

[00:04:25] like Mother's Day cards or Father's Day cards or birthday cards and where

[00:04:30] she's coming this year. I also have a lady coming Tracy she does gluten-free

[00:04:34] all gluten-free baking so anybody that's gluten-free we have that

[00:04:39] there. I'm just going through my list here trying to see the ones that you're

[00:04:44] thinking of. I have a guy coming with the potatoes and vegetables and things

[00:04:49] and Habib is there with his baklava and hummus. I want to make sure I say it

[00:04:55] right. So you have baklava that's gonna be there? Yes he's there. He's been with me

[00:05:00] now three years this will be his third year and everybody just loves it.

[00:05:05] It's sort of like a sweet but oh my heavens. Once you taste it you gotta have more. Oh yes I love my baklava.

[00:05:14] Oh do you? Oh yes. He has baklava. He has that there. So how much does it cost for a

[00:05:20] vendor to set up there at the market? At my market I only charge fifteen

[00:05:25] dollars and that's inside for like usually a six-foot table and then

[00:05:30] outside is a ten by ten spot. I like it if they have their own tent and tables

[00:05:35] makes it a lot easier but I do have some tents that I let them use. I don't

[00:05:40] charge them I just let them use it. If they break it well then they're gonna

[00:05:43] replace it but other than that. And it's fifteen dollar registration for the year. Now that

[00:05:49] helps pay like because we have a vendor's day in August and I give away

[00:05:53] fifteen dozen corn free to all the customers and vendors and whatever and

[00:05:59] we have special I have prizes and things like that. I have prizes for the vendors

[00:06:04] because they support me all year so I try and give a little back to them. So

[00:06:09] how did you get involved in doing this market? Oh I have a cousin that used

[00:06:16] to work there and when the girl that was doing it left oh you can do it

[00:06:21] she said you're gonna do it there. So anyway she ended up talking me into

[00:06:25] it. So I said well I'll try it and because I've been a vendor there since

[00:06:30] it ever opened and then at Kingston too and so she asked me if I would do it

[00:06:37] and so I just start running. I really enjoy it. I enjoy the vendors, I enjoy

[00:06:42] meeting the people. So your market opens on May the 23rd yeah and runs up

[00:06:48] through October I assume. No it only goes to the end of September. Okay and

[00:06:53] I understand you were set up as a vendor yesterday at the Kingston market.

[00:06:59] So tell me a little bit about the Kingston market because it's one that's

[00:07:04] very well known here it's always open on Saturdays now that they opened

[00:07:08] yesterday. Yeah it's oh Kingston is a bigger a lot bigger market than ours.

[00:07:13] We just have a small little market but Kingston there's oodles and

[00:07:17] oodles of vendors. They have everything there from Chinese food to

[00:07:21] Korean food to hamburger hot dogs and french fries. I mean you know they it's

[00:07:26] it's really really big there's people there with wooden products two or three

[00:07:31] people there with wooden and baking and it's a really big market. It opens at

[00:07:37] eight in the morning and it goes till one. They have one area inside that I

[00:07:43] know has a lot of jewelry and various things like that because

[00:07:46] that's where my wife always goes when we go there. Yeah well they're

[00:07:51] inside yeah there's she got they have two now the dining area they used to have

[00:07:55] the breakfasts. They don't have them anymore they just have like breakfast

[00:08:00] sandwiches and things. They're still doing that out of the kitchen but they

[00:08:04] don't have the sit-down breakfast kind of thing and all the room is full

[00:08:10] of vendors now so they have two full rooms they're full of vendors plus

[00:08:14] the deck plus outside plus a shelter so that's where I am under the

[00:08:18] shelter. Yes I know that at that room where the jewelry and everything is I

[00:08:24] just let my wife walk around in there as long as she wants to because she's

[00:08:29] gonna find something in there she likes. Oh yeah yeah there's a lot of nice jewelry. I buy

[00:08:34] there all the time. I buy from all the vendors. I think I spend more than

[00:08:37] I make but in my own market I usually buy from all the vendors. Well

[00:08:44] I don't know I just support them you know I think it's good for for a

[00:08:49] manager to support you know. We've just got a small market it's not big like

[00:08:54] Kingston. Kingston you have maybe three or four thousand people going through

[00:08:58] where ours you might have three or four hundred people you know but but we

[00:09:04] have a good little market we like it we have I got Ron Maloney coming to

[00:09:07] play first week everybody loves him and he plays all kinds of music so he

[00:09:13] plays all day he usually starts at two and goes right through till six. He's

[00:09:18] really good and it's I don't know when you hear the music and people want to

[00:09:23] come because you know what's going on you want to hear the music you know.

[00:09:27] Anyway yeah we I enjoy doing it. I don't know how much longer I'll be

[00:09:32] doing it. I'm not getting younger but anyway. Now were you there a few years

[00:09:37] ago when they were doing the Canada 150 and all of the big canoes were

[00:09:42] coming down the river? Yes. I was on one of those canoes helping with paddle

[00:09:47] with one of them that's the one time that I was at the market and was over there.

[00:09:51] Yeah we had a lot of canoers stopped and came into our market it was really

[00:09:56] neat yeah I think we were back on a Friday then. You might have just

[00:10:02] changed for one day in order to be at the same day that we were coming through.

[00:10:06] No we used to run them on Fridays but then we found with the boaters we

[00:10:12] didn't have any room for parking for our customers because the boaters all

[00:10:17] came in and of course they went out early in the morning till six at night.

[00:10:20] Well our market went till six so there was no place for customers to

[00:10:25] park right because the cars were all taken up with boaters that were

[00:10:29] gone all day. So we decided to try and Thursday and that was why we

[00:10:34] switched to a Thursday and we found it much better because there's places for

[00:10:38] them to park not as many boaters so there's not as many cars you know in

[00:10:42] the parking lot taking up spaces. So you're finding now of course you

[00:10:46] haven't opened yet for this year but last year you were finding that people

[00:10:50] were really starting to come again. COVID is behind us and everybody's

[00:10:54] getting out now. Yeah do you know it's funny even during COVID we had

[00:10:59] lineups outside our door. I had everything all done off for COVID and

[00:11:05] you had a way in and a way to go out and I had everything with arrows marked

[00:11:11] sanitizer, mask, I had everything all laid out and yeah we only allowed like

[00:11:18] five or six in the building at a time and of course they had to have a mask on

[00:11:23] and whatever but we according to the health department anyway we did

[00:11:27] really good with the COVID thing and we still had a lot of people come you know

[00:11:32] so I was really surprised like I wasn't expecting as many as was there. Now I

[00:11:37] understand that with the two years that we had the floods that went

[00:11:41] through that took a lot of the cottages out and everything that maybe

[00:11:45] the Kingston market hasn't had as big a group of people coming through is

[00:11:50] what they had before because a lot of those cottage owners aren't coming

[00:11:54] anymore. No. Did you notice any of that change? I noticed it yesterday I

[00:12:00] like I was expecting more yesterday than was it was kind of in bunches

[00:12:05] yesterday where normally it's always a great big crowd in the morning first

[00:12:09] thing but it wasn't it was kind of slower than then it has been but but

[00:12:15] it was a good day you know it was quite a few people a lot of people

[00:12:18] looking to see usually they come the first day to look and see what's

[00:12:21] there and then the next week they come back to buy you know normally you know

[00:12:26] but yeah I've noticed that we've few of us vendors have noticed the

[00:12:29] difference that it just isn't since COVID. COVID kind of you know because

[00:12:36] we were we had such a strict really really strict at Kingston and it was

[00:12:42] they could only come in so far only one person could come into your

[00:12:46] booth at a time and I think that made it a lot of the people leery to go you

[00:12:52] know but but we still did good you know I did good yesterday so I was

[00:12:57] happy. That's the only thing that's important. Yeah. Well Faye thank you for

[00:13:01] the time and for the information and I hope that you sell a lot of

[00:13:05] pickles this summer. Well I got a lot made right now hopefully I was I know

[00:13:11] I'm gonna sell a lot of chow because apparently McLaren's doesn't make

[00:13:14] chow anymore so they're all calling me for chow chow. Well that's fantastic thank

[00:13:20] you for your time. Thank you. You'll find information in the show notes

[00:13:27] about all the different markets that Faye and I talked about and I want to

[00:13:32] mention that the Queen's Square farmers market will be open this Sunday

[00:13:37] May the 12th and then stay open on Sundays all the way up until

[00:13:42] Thanksgiving in October. The Kiwanis Club has parking by donation directly across

[00:13:49] the street from the market we appreciate the fact that Key Industries

[00:13:53] gives us a space so that we can use it as a fundraiser. I'd also like to

[00:13:59] mention that I found this real great coffee shop in Hillsboro this week

[00:14:04] it's called the Cinnamon Soul Cafe and I used one of those free coffees that

[00:14:11] Denny was gracious enough to provide to me. You might want to check out the

[00:14:17] Cinnamon Soul Cafe if you're ever going through Hillsboro. We'll probably

[00:14:23] feature an episode later talking with the owner there. It's been a real joy

[00:14:32] being with you today I appreciate you taking the time to listen to the

[00:14:36] podcast. If you go to my website mbtraveler.com you can leave a comment

[00:14:42] you can do a rating and I look forward to seeing you back here again next week

[00:14:47] and oh by the way you can also buy me a coffee there on that website if you

[00:14:53] care too. Have a great day and a wonderful week.