It’s the carrots. Sweet, crisp, enormous Nantes carrots; as thick at the bottom as they are at the top. There’s nothing like them, say customers who gather at the Eastview Community Hall every second Saturday to stock up on fresh baked goods and locally grown vegetables.
Standing with a big cabbage tucked under her left arm, Beverley Carr said nothing matches the sweetness of carrots grown by the Bradshaw family’s Beck Farms, one of five farms in the Innisfail Growers group.
“He says they don’t grow them in sugar, but I don’t believe them,” said Carr, pointing to Kurt Bradshaw as he served customers from behind a line of tables stacked with carrots, potatoes, onions, carrots, beets and more carrots.
Bradshaw smiled and shook his head.
The secret is the variety itself and the conditions under which they’re grown, said Susanna Neumann, who brings in produce from her vegetable garden at Lacombe.
Nantes are known for their sweetness, aided by the cool nights and rich soil where they’re grown.
Few people can stomach store varieties of carrots once they’ve tried the Nantes, which can be found in grocery stores from time to time, said Neumann.
The grocery stores tend to stock carrots that store better and are not as prone to breakage, she said.
While carrots are a big draw, Carr said what’s really important to her is the ability to buy locally grown food straight from the farms and kitchens in which it is produced.
“I just wish the market could go on 12 months of the year. My daughter lives in Calgary. There is a wonderful year-round market there, and it’s wonderful to be able to go there. Of course, it’s not just veggies. There’s all sorts of wonderful things.”
Neumann she would also love to see a year-round market in Red Deer, even if for only one morning per week.
The Eastview Estates market, organized by the Bradshaws and other members of the Innisfail Growers, is now in its third season, started up in October after the Red Deer Public Market closed for the year.
The idea of holding a small indoor market every second Saturday arose as a way of making it easier for producers to deliver product to their regular customers, said Neumann.
A weekly market in a larger venue would enable more producers to take part and may divert to Red Deer some of the many farms that are now selling year-round in Calgary and Edmonton, she said.
But Airdrie resident Les Osenda, selling baked goods from his mother, Marion Nathan-Dove’s kitchen in Rocky Mountain House, said he is not confident that a market in Red Deer would be able to make enough money to be worthwhile, given current economic conditions.
“It would be nice, if we could find the clientele, because we do deliveries throughout the winter. But it still slows down after December — everybody’s got their freezers full.”
Even Calgary is not doing really well, said Osenda.
Nathan-Dove, who has converted her basement to a commercial kitchen, sells her goods every Saturday during the spring and summer, when the Red Deer Public Market is open. On this Saturday, she was working the market at Parkland Nurseries and Garden Centre while Osenda and a helper worked the Eastview Estates market.
Producers return to Eastview Estates on Dec. 10. They didn’t want to come during the previous weekend to avoid conflict with the Christmas craft sale at the Westerner, said Neumann.
bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com
— copyright Red Deer Advocate