Goat milk soap bars, eight-inch miniature tomato plants, glitter-infused maple syrup and homegrown gourmet mushrooms all have one thing in common. These products can’t be easily found on store shelves, but they all have a place at the St. Peter Farmers Market.
On Saturday morning, a little over half a dozen vendors set up shop in the St. Peter Coop parking lot to share freshly picked vegetables, homemade baked goods, canned jellies and more at the first farmers market of the summer season. The St. Peter Farmers Market is continuing every Saturday at 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. from June 15 to mid-October.
This year, the farmers market is under new management as Crystal Brock, a longtime St. Peter Farmers Market vendor and owner of Cedar Springs Farm, has taken on the reins as the event’s new market manager. Alongside new market treasurer Whitney Chantharak, Brock aims to keep the Farmer’s Market fresh with a mix of old and new faces and a variety of special guests and activities.
“Being a vendor I know a lot of how the market has been run in the past and then other people have stepped up and one of the vendors is helping find different activities, different things to bring to the market,” said Brock.
The event featured several first timers like prairie grass vendor Jen Selvey of Grow Native. Selvey recently opened her plant nursery in Mankato where she specializes in growing native plants and grasses like spotted bee balm, prairie pussytoes and june grass. The home grower has spent the past 20 years working on her own prairie restoration project and now aims to help others plant their own pocket prairies and rain gardens to create a more hospitable environment for pollinators.
“These plants are specifically for our native bees, butterflies, moths just to help our ecosystem work how it’s supposed to,” said Selvey.
Also new to the market are Vien Nguyen and Kassi Goettl of Snug Pod Farmstead. The woman-owned Mankato area farm specializes in microgreens, young vegetables which are packed with more nutrients than their mature counterparts. Customers could grab a spicy gourmet mix to add some seasoning to dishes at home or grab a tray of microgreens for their pet cat, dog or hamster. Nguyen and Goettl also promoted their Shark Week-themed tea blend and offered some of the world’s smallest tomato varieties: the eight-inch-tall orange hat micro dwarf tomato and the 12-inch purple reign — not to be confused with the Prince song.
Other vendors like Kelly Brancamp and her mother-in-law Karen Brancamp of Peaceful Valley returned to the St. Peter Farmers Market as five-year veterans of the event. The duo got their start moving maple syrup harvested from 75 trees on their 37-acre forested property, but over time they’ve rapidly expanded their selection of products to include homemade jams and jellies, baked goods and knitted crochet accessories.
“I like that it’s in the coop parking lot,” said Kelly Brancamp. “Some of my extra ingredients I’ll get there that we can’t grow here, so it feels good to have that partnership. We’re members of the coop too.”
One of Brancamp’s favorite ingredients to work with are the dandelions which grow on the Peaceful Valley Campground between Le Sueur and St. Peter off Highway 169. She began making dandelion jelly before branching out into lip balm, syrup and wine — though she makes the latter only for personal use at home.
“I’m making all this stuff but I want to do more, I want to share that. I feel like the stuff I make is really unique and stuff that you’re not going to find anywhere else, like lilac jellies,” said Brancamp.
In addition to regular vendors, the St. Peter Farmers Market will occasionally feature live entertainment and visits from special guests like the St. Peter Library, River’s Edge Ambulance and the St. Peter Fire Department. The event’s opening weekend on Saturday featured an appearance from a Nicollet County Sheriff’s Office deputy.
”We’re trying to provide fun activities, some entertainment and find out what the customers want to see if we can provide what they are looking for at the market,” said Brock.
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