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A look behind the scenes at Orangeville Farmer’s Market

May 17, 2018   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

It was a perfect day for the Orangeville Farmer’s market to be back outdoors on Second Street next to the Town Hall.

Again this year there is a wide variety of vendors selling everything from fresh produce and honey to cured meat and homemade soap as the outdoor festival returned on May 5.

While visitors may appreciate the availability of fresh local products, seldom do people really give a lot of thought to what goes on prior to the goods arriving at the market.

Amy Ouchterlony and Torrey Sirdevan from Fiddle Foot Farms in Mulmur had seedling plants for sale. Grown in the Fiddle Foot greenhouse, the plants offer home gardeners a start to their spring vegetable gardens.

“The rest of this season this table will be covered in vegetables, but for now when we don’t have as much to offer we grow seedlings for gardeners in Orangeville who want to grown their own vegetables,” Ms. Ouchterlony explained. “Today we brought some tomatoes and herbs. Next week we’ll have way more selection. We’ll have more tomato varieties, peppers, eggplants, and herbs. These plants have been growing for about three weeks.”

Fiddle Farms is at the market every week and also takes part in the indoor market when the weather is colder.

They enjoy meeting the visitors.

“We’ve been at this market since 2008. The people are very appreciative of what we do. Everything we grow is organic.”

Growing plants successfully is a science in itself.

Torrey Sirdevan is a chemical engineer who is interning at Fiddle Park Farms after getting her degree from the University of British Columbia. She has an interest in the type of farming and plans to learn all she can while applying her knowledge.

“Chemical engineering is a pretty diverse discipline. I specialized in sustainable food and this is a bio-dynamic farm so it builds on sustainable input / output model. I’m an intern for the season so I’m here for seven and-a-half months,” Ms. Sirdevan explained.

“We have people like Torrey come join us every season,” Ms. Ouchterlony added, “They have exposure and learn by doing. In exchange it helps us out with the work.”

While doing your shopping at the market, you can appreciate all the hard work that goes into supplyin the region with all these fresh local products.

The Farmer’s Market is open every Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.


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