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The Edwards Corner Farmers Market begins Saturday

Caramie Schnell
cschnell@vaildaily.com
Edwards-based company Halfpint Naturals is one of 35 vendors taking part in the Edwards Corner Farmers Market, which kicks off for the season Saturday.
Special to the Weekly |

If you go ...

What: Edwards Corner Farmers Market.

Where: The Corner at Edwards parking lot, 56 Edwards Village Boulevard, Edwards.

When: 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. beginning Saturday and continuing each Saturday through Sept. 12.

More information: Visit edwardscornerfarmersmarket.com.

EDWARDS — There was a rumor floating around this spring that the Edwards Corner Farmers Market wouldn’t continue this summer. The rumor is false. The market kicks off on Saturday; it runs from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. each Saturday through Sept. 12.

“We wanted to make sure everyone knows we’re here; we’re alive and well and better than ever,” said Dan Bryant, general manager of The Corner at Edwards building. Bryant is organizing the market this year.

KZYR had run the market for a few years and decided to end that relationship, Bryant said.



“We decided to keep the market going because it’s such a good community asset. This market draws people mostly from the Edwards area,” Bryant said.

Most of the vendors are food related — “there are lots of growers and farmers from the Grand Junction and Delta area,” Bryant said. “Our market is mostly organic fruits, vegetables, cheese, honey and fish. Mountain Man Fruit and Nuts has a booth. And then we have three different pasta vendors.”

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A total of 35 vendors will sell goods at the market. Ninety-five percent of the vendors from last year are returning. There are also some new faces in the mix, like Colorado Alpines & Wildflower Farms, a longtime Edwards business that will offer a selection of culinary herbs, like basil, dill, sage, oregano and rosemary, at its booth on Saturday.

“We know the Edwards (Market) is known as the ‘foodie market,’ so we’ll definitely have culinary herbs,” said Traci Macnamara, the media and events coordinator for Colorado Alpines & Wildflower Farm. “A lot of the herbs we have are Colorado grown and we will even have some that are Wildflower Farm grown. We will also have some vegetable starters, including hybrid and heirloom tomatoes. Within these next two weeks, people want to get those in the ground so (the tomatoes) can ripen before the end of the summer.”

The booth will also feature annual flowers, great for window boxes, for sale and a selection of colorful “fun, eye-candy gardening stuff,” she said.

Other new vendors include Kaleb’s Katch, from Eagle, which sells Alaskan fish; a booth selling Young Living brand essential oils; Guerrero’s Chiles from Pueblo; and Bryant’s own products, called Handy Map. “I do digital fishing maps for download on phones and tablets and I sell microfiber cloth bandanas, which are super soft.”

Live bands will perform every other week during the market. This week, catch local musician Van Keith Harlow. Some vendors will be doing live cooking demonstrations this summer as well, Bryant said.

RETURNING VENDORS

Husband-and-wife team Karin and Jeff Lawrence have sold their Gumbies’ Goodies salsas at the market since 2011.

“There was no hesitation when the time came to decide which market we wanted to be a part of,” Karin said. “The location and spirit of this market always draws us back like an old friend.”

Gumbies’ Goodies offers five varieties of salsa, including a few unique ones, like the medium-spiced Corn in Your Shorts Salsa, with sweet corn and peppers, and the milder Cherry Bomb Salsa, with a hint of sweetness from dark sweet cherries.

Another returning vendor is Halfpint Naturals, which sells 100 percent handmade, chemical and preservative free body and pet care products. Edwards resident Lisa Kraft hand makes the products, including lotion bars, lip butters and an essential-oil blend sleep serum called Get Sleep, that “seems to help everyone I know,” she said. “We make a Magic Muscles stick that’s great for aches and pains. It smells a lot like Icy Hot but doesn’t have any of the chemicals in it.”

She opts to use Colorado products when she can: “We recently connected with a lavender farm in Palisade so we’re using Colorado-grown lavender essential oil in our products.”

Kraft also sells her products at Market on the Mountain at The Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch on Friday evenings (it starts July 3) and participates in the Dillon, Basalt and Carbondale farmers markets as well. She’s returning to the Edwards Market in part because she likes the other vendors, she said.

“Liz with Batter Cupcakes was our neighbor last year at the market; she’s a sweetheart,” Kraft said. “Philippe from Soul of Provence is French and imports French pottery. There’s Nick with Wag’s World Orchards out of Palisade. They’re great. And Karen Smith with Smith’s Livestock; she sells beef and chicken and quail eggs and a lot of really interesting stuff.”


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