Winter eats

As it gets colder, venues for local farmers to sell their goods start to dwindle, so a few years ago, the Garden Shop Nursery decided to extend their farmers’ market to a year-round event.

Their winter farmers’ market is on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.—until June when they switch it to Friday evenings. It’s located at the historic Caughlin Ranch House at 3636 Mayberry Drive. There are a variety of vendors and products to choose from, including eggs from Hadji Paul, microgreens from Hyde’s Herbs, Highland Soaps, rum cakes from Kathy’s Sweet Cravings, Grandma’s Sassy Salsa, sweet and spicy treats from Treat Yourself, baked goods from MwintSoph, paracord products from Sierra Paracord, among others.

“The farmers, a lot of them come to us because they don’t have an outlet this time of year, and it’s a good place for them,” owner Ed Bath said. “For a lot of these people, it’s their only job.”

The Garden Shop clears out a room for the vendors to set up and sell their products, moving merchandise outside or onto the porch, and Ed said there’s typically a pretty good turnout. In the middle of the day, it can even get a little hard to walk around in the shop.

When asked if the winter farmer’s market helps the business for his own store, he said it probably does help a little bit—maybe with a pack of seeds, bag of soil or bar of soap or so—but that there isn’t as much interest in gardening in the winter. He’s more focused on providing a venue to help other local businesses out.

“It gives the public the opportunity to buy something that’s really healthy, and it’s grown locally,” said Teri Bath, who does marketing for the Garden Shop. “All of our vendors are local, and we really want to support local because we’re a local business, too. So we want to support other smaller local businesses that want to grow up and become a brick-and-mortar business. … Start up companies trying to get off the ground don’t have to go somewhere and pay $2,000 a month, they can come here on a smaller scale, work out all the bugs as a business, and then work up into something larger.”

“We’ve had some [producers] that have started with us that now have much bigger and better things, which is great,” Ed said. “We want them to do that. They’re in Whole Foods or whatever now. That’s what we hope for all of them. We all help each other. That’s part of being local.”

The Garden Shop is 40 years old, and Ed has been there since he was 20 years old—about 30 years now. He moved the shop to its current location at Caughlin Ranch about five years ago. Ed grew up in the area, walking by the old house on his way to Roy Gomm Elementary School when he was a kid.

“I was born and raised here, and this is a farm,” Ed said. “It was a working farm for many, many years. The front house has been there since 1900. It’s almost 115 years old now standing right where it is. They grew vegetables and raised beef and chickens and nuts and geese and goats and the whole nine yards. So, to me, it was a natural fit for this property to continue on that tradition with the farming atmosphere, the farming community.”