Farmers market has fresh produce, ideas

By D.a. Wilkinson

SALEM — As one customer said, “I want my food to walk here.”

And it almost does.

The woman was referring to the food offered at the Salem Farmers Market, which started earlier this year and will end when the first hard frost in October marks the end of the growing season.

John Furlong, who recounted the woman’s comment, and Jonathan Hull, both 28 and both of Salem, are involved in the revival of the market, which opened earlier this year.

The former market has been gone for two years.

“We missed it,” Furlong said.

The new market runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays and 3 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays. The idea is to get fresh food for the week on Saturday and pick up anything else needed on Wednesday, organizers say.

The market offers produce picked in the early morning and sold within a few hours.

“Every week it gets bigger and bigger,” Furlong said.

Customers are coming from East Palestine, Alliance and Austintown.

With all respect to the chain stores that offer produce, Furlong said, homegrown food simply tastes better,

Free-range chickens offered recently at the market that were raised without chemicals don’t taste like chickens raised by poultry companies, he said.

One offering that was at the market was Swiss chard, a leafy vegetable from the Mediterranean that can be used in salads or cooked with oil. Another was fennel, an herb, which also can be cooked.

Hull said customers at the farmer’s market have the opportunity to try something new.

In discussion with vendors, they may say, “Hey, what’s that?”

The market is also important “with the economy the way it is,” Furlong said, because plants are also sold there.

One tomato plant will cost about 63 cents and produce about $10 to $15 dollars worth of tomatoes, he said.

“It’s maintenance-free,” Furlong said. “You put it in the ground and watch it grow.”

Hull said, “It’s important to state that money spent locally gets recycled.”

That money paid to vendors goes to coffee shops or restaurants or other stores, he said.

The Friends Roastery in Salem brings down complimentary coffee to the market, and other companies such as DH Galleries have been supportive of the market.

Furlong works at Ventra Salem, which makes plastic car parts.

Hull is involved in permaculture design and sits on a board in Cleveland that is studying the benefits of the method developed in the 1970s. Permaculture is an attempt to design communities and perennial agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in the natural ecologies.

That could be useful in dealing with the abandoned homes and lots in Cleveland, Youngstown and even in Salem, he said.

But the men have other ideas to help expand gardens locally. One is to plant mint between cabbages to discourage caterpillars and other pests from eating the cabbage.