The Medical Lake Farmers Market is having its best year yet, signing up more than 40 vendors to sell everything from fresh produce to crafts on the first and third Saturday of each month in June through October.
The market, tucked into the end of Lake Street off Lefevre Street, sprawls along the edge of Coney Island Park on the shore of Medical Lake. It’s open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. each market day, where people can find flowers, honey, crafts, jewelry, baked goods, jams, plants and more. Each market day is different, as not every vendor is there each time.
Heather Delanoy the owner of Wild Sage Farms is in her third season at the Medical Lake Farmers Market with her fresh
produce and potted plants. While based in the West Plains, she also sells at the Kendall Yards and Liberty Lake Farmers Markets.
The market launched four years ago, the brainchild of market manager Erin Bishop and Gerri Johnson of Re*Imagine Medical Lake. “We just got to talking one day about how nice it would be to have a little farmers market there,” Bishop said. “The need was obvious to us.”
Their discussions came during the COVID-19 pandemic, when supply lines were in disarray. There’s only one grocery store in Medical Lake and it’s a distance from the neighborhood where the market is held. “Medical Lake really is kind of a food desert,” Bishop said. “We wanted to provide something within walking distance.”
Bishop, who owns The Cannery and sells jams and baked goods at the market, got to work lining up vendors for the market she and Johnson dreamed of. “We started with three of four vendors for our very first market,” she said. “It was pouring rain and cold as all get out.”
The market has done nothing but grow ever since. Bishop curates the vendor list so no one category is over represented by vendors. “We try not to oversaturate it,” she said. “We are excited by the variety. A lot of people say it’s a one stop shop for them.”
One of the main goals of the market is to support local farmers and food producers, Bishop said. It allows them to market their business to the local community. “We just really want to infuse the local economy with support for those,” she said.
The vendors are a mix of new arrivals this season and several who have been there since the beginning. “It’s a makers market,” she said. “Everything is handmade, handcrafted or locally produced.”
Several, but not all, of the vendors accept WIC and SNAP and those that do have a small sign indicating this hanging at their booth.
The market used to be down the road a short distance, but Bishop said they moved it this year to where Lake Street ends so the market could have the lake as a backdrop. One resident has already talked about paddling in a kayak from his home across the lake to shop at the market, Bishop said.
Heather Delanoy, owner of Wild Sage Farms, is in her third season at the market. She also sells her fresh produce and potted plants at the Kendall Yards and Liberty Lake farmers markets, as well as selling Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes to subscribers weekly. On a recent market day she was selling fresh eggs, herbs and produce in addition to fruit and vegetable plant starts, including strawberries, tomatoes and peppers, that people could take home and plant themselves.
“I love it,” Delanoy said of the Medical Lake Farmers Market. “It is just growing.”
She also spends her growing season selling her produce to 24 local restaurants and wholesale customers. “It’s just my goal to feed my community,” she said. “It just makes me happy.”
Blue Truck Treats, which sells cookies and candy, is a new addition to the market. Owners Christina Burke-Adame and Dale Haas brought their wares to this year’s Founders Day celebration in Medical Lake in June and liked the experience so much they signed up for the farmers market.
“We’ve already had people who saw us at Founders Day come back and buy more,” Burke-Adame said.
They are only in Medical Lake on the first Saturday of every month because they’ve already committed to several special events and several other farmers markets, including the ones in Millwood, Hillyard and Emerson-Garfield. “That’s pretty much all we sell at,” she said. “The farmers markets are our bread and butter.”
On a recent Saturday the couple was selling mainly some of their dozens of flavors of Chewies candies, including raspberry, pina colada and watermelon, plus several of their caramel varieties. The caramels come in flavors like bananas foster, apple, espresso and peppermint.
The couple joined the market mid-season and were pleased with the number of customers on their first day. “We already did much better than we anticipated,” she said. “This is fun. Really nice people.”
Just a couple booths down was My Dad’s Jam. “Only three ingredients: fruit, sugar and pectin,” boasted a sign. “Just like dad used to make.” May Dad’s Jam is a low key, family operation. Dad, also known as Kevin Oldenburg, grows all the fruit. His wife, Margo Buckles, and daughter, Nina Oldenburg, make the jam.
“I love growing,” said Kevin Oldenburg. “I grow the fruit and I grow too much of it.”
The Medical Lake Farmers Market is the only place to find My Dad’s Jam. The business wasn’t born out of a desire to make money, however. “We’re not doing it for a living,” he said. “We’re doing it to get rid of fruit. If we didn’t do this, we’d have jam for 100 years. I don’t even like jam.”
The family sells a wide variety of jams, including gooseberry, grape, peach and plum. Nina Oldenburg is the family marketer, wandering the market talking to customers and directing them toward the family booth. “She tells people to come buy jam,” Buckles said.
Buckles said she loves the community aspect of the market. “We’ve seen our neighbors here,” she said.
The market always does something special in August to celebrate National Farmers Market Week and this year will kick off what will hopefully become an annual cooking competition on the first Saturday in August called Rooted. “We’ve been calling it a farmers market to table cooking challenge,” Bishop said.
Six local chefs have been recruited to make dishes made from ingredients sourced at the farmers market. Since there’s no commercial kitchen at the market, the food will be made off-site and then brought to the market for judging by both a panel of judges and visitors to the market.
“People will be able to sample it,” Bishop said.
The chefs will also do demonstrations as well as speak on stage about the dishes they made. When not on stage, the chefs will be available at booths in the market so people can visit with them. The cooking competition portion of the market will be held between noon and 3 p.m., with winners of the judge’s award and the people’s choice award announced after 2 p.m.
There will also be a kids kitchen from 10 a.m. to noon that day, where kids can taste test fresh produce and try their hand at making bruschetta. “They’ll get to make it and sample it and take it home,” Bishop said.
In addition to being a fun competition, Bishop said she hopes the event will show people the variety of dishes that can be made with local ingredients, some of which people might not be familiar with. “We’re trying to get people to see what you can do with some of these less popular produce items,” she said. “We’re so excited. I think it’s going to be something we can take forward year to year.”
There are also several special events scheduled during the rest of the market season. July 19 is military appreciation day, with representatives from Fairchild Air Force Base on site and discounts for veterans and active duty service members. August 16 is First Responders Appreciation Day, with similar discounts.
“We just want to show our support and appreciation for those who serve,” Bishop said.
September 6 is School Employee Appreciation Day and Sept. 20 is a special kid’s market, where kids ages 10 to 18 can apply to be a vendor.
“The majority of farmers are over 50 or 60,” said Bishop of the kid’s market day. “We’re trying to inspire younger farmers.”
The market is also trying to attract new customers. This year the market received a grant that allows it to give $25 in “Market Bucks” to up to 200 residents in the 99022 zip code that can be redeemed at the market for food and fresh produce. People can come to the market with a driver’s license showing their 99022 address, plus a piece of mail showing the same address, in order to receive their Market Bucks.
The Market Bucks have been popular and there are still some available, Bishop said. “That’s been very well received,” she said. Overall Bishop is pleased with the growth of the market and the way it has been supported by residents. “We try to encourage community,” she said. “It’s been an incredible blessing to see how this idea turned into something so special.”
