Delaware Farmers Markets

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2015 Local Holiday Markets

This past year, Mom and I revamped the Little Wagon Produce website. After 6 years, it became outdated. It’s no small task for a small business. It took several meetings with Tim Smith’s team from Delmarva Digital, new pictures, and updated text. A few new features include a scrolling picture banner and a “We Sell” tab. Over the years, we’ve collected a database of customer email addresses to send seasonal updates. We feel it’s a nice benefit to quickly tell customers, “Sweet corn’s ready!”. This winter, I plan to increase our collection of customer recipes online. To check out our website or join the email newsletter, just go to our homepage.
Here’s our last email update for 2015 regarding upcoming holiday markets:
Greetings Patrons & Friends,
Thank you for a wonderful 2015 season! Little Wagon Produce is closed for the season. On a daily basis, we may have a few produce items available on our wagon for “self-service”. For those of you who stopped in the beginning, you know what this means!  However, we do have 2 upcoming holiday market dates to share with you. Please mark your calendars:
  1. Friday, Nov. 20 – Milton “Harvest Market”, Noon-4pm, on the grounds of Dogfish Brewery (featuring punkin ale), come enjoy the live music!
  2. Saturday, Nov. 21 – Milford Riverwalk 2nd Annual Fall Market, 10am–2pm, downtown Milford, come get your Dolce coffee and take a stroll!
We plan to offer the following at these holiday markets:
  • Jams, jellies, honey, canned pickles
  • Spaghetti and acorn squash
  • Butternut and Hubbard squash (good for pie making)
  • Sweet potatoes
  • Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, turnips
  • Holiday slates with wrought iron (pictured below)
  • Holiday flags with wrought iron (these make great holiday gifts!)
  • Possibly a few fresh greenery pieces (wreaths, garland, etc.)
  • Possibly a few fruit baskets and/or jam & jelly gift baskets
We hope the weather stays mild and would love to see you there! You can also check out our Fall/Winter Recipes on our website. We will be adding more throughout the winter.

If you have any specific needs over the winter, please give us a call at the house (not the stand): 302-349-5206. Thank you again for your business and we look forward to serving you in 2016. Have a blessed holiday season!

Sincerely,
Little Wagon Produce
Dan & Becky Vanderwende and Families

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Bring on Summer and Fresh Produce!

Written by Christy Vanderwende Wright, Little Wagon Produce, for Milford Live (page 14) in honor of Local Produce Week

Bring on summer and the local produce! A sure sign of summer is downtown farmer’s markets. Little Wagon Produce is busy as a vendor at three – the Milton Farmer’s Market on Friday afternoon, the Riverwalk Farmers Market in downtown Milford every Saturday morning, and the Georgetown Farmer’s Market at 16 mile Brewery every Wednesday evening.

The Riverwalk Farmers Market in Milford has become a regular meeting hub for the Milford community. Shoppers mingle, talk, smile, laugh, and hug in between buying goods. Live music and many new vendors compliment the market. The weather has been warm but the grove of trees provides a refreshing shade. We appreciate the loyalty of Milford patrons year after year. I also appreciate the many questions and concern in my absence. I welcomed a baby boy last August and have taken time off to care for him. My sisters, Danna and Amber, have replaced me and love to share pictures of the baby!

The most popular question we get each year is “Do you have sweet corn yet?” The answer is YES! We are also picking daily our own yellow squash, zucchini, sweet corn, string beans, kale, green tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. We will soon have red tomatoes. Farmers have been blessed with plentiful rain this season. Keep in mind, there are expenses incurred by vendors such as fuel costs, paper and plastic bags or packaging, labor, and significant time picking and packing the day before the market. We tend to spend most of Friday preparing for the market in Milford and schedule 4-5 employees to attend and assist customers during the market.

If you do plan to take a stroll downtown soon, here are a few tidbits to help you be “Farmer Market Ready” this summer:

  • Bring cash! Many vendors are small businesses and cannot afford the fees accompanied with credit card machines. There is no bank in downtown Milford anymore.
  • Bring your own bags! The recyclable grocery bags work great! By doing this, you will help the environment and help us because plastic bags are an additional expense to vendors that we usually do not pass on to the customers. We even pay more and go out of the way to find heavy-duty plastic bags to hold a dozen ears of sweet corn (and they still don’t hold a dozen ears well).
  • Bring a friend! Word of mouth is the best marketing! The Riverwalk Farmer’s Market is open every Saturday from 9am-1pm.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask! Many markets have an information booth or a “Market Manager” to oversee the market each week.
  • Spread the love! Hopefully you will find more than one vendor to patronize. In Milford, there’s a large variety of vendors offering more than produce and there are several businesses nearby such as Dolce Coffee Shop, Blooming Boutique, Sugar Bee Candy Store, Arena’s and Georgia House Restaurant.
  • Bring your smile! Many vendors love to talk and engage their customers, including us.
  • Stay updated! The market is usually rain or shine! Vendors still come out in the rain. Check to see if your local market has a Facebook page and/or website for updates. Milford can be found on Facebook at “Riverwalk Farmers Market” and we update our page as well, “Little Wagon Produce”.
  • Say thanks to the vendors! There would be no market without them!

Thank you to all our loyal customers who already know the ropes and patronize the market week after week! Be sure to check out the Department of Agriculture’s “Buy Local” website for a farmer’s market near you at www.de.gov/buylocal.

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Farmers’ Markets: Past, Present, Future Part I – Getting Started

Did you know there are 27 farmers’ markets in the First State? Many are opening this weekend, including the Western Sussex Farmer’s Market in Seaford. They’re popping up everywhere! So, have you visited one yet? If not, you might be missing out on what has become the nucleus of most downtown’s thriving economies. Last year, with only 16 markets, sales totaled $1.8 million. It’s like having your good old corner store, with a produce section, in walking distance of your favorite coffee shop, restaurant, bank, and bakery shops. I bet there’s one near you, with 12 new locations opening this summer. Check out the Department of Agriculture’s directory for locations and times.

But believe it or not, the idea is not new. Many markets such as Lewes and Milford began over ten years ago. I’ve had the pleasure to participate in several through my work with my parent’s business, Little Wagon Produce. I got the call to help my Mom in downtown Milford five years ago, as she could no longer handle the volume by herself. In 2001, she began to transport fresh produce to Milford every Saturday morning. It took years for her to establish the LWP  name in Milford and I’m proud to witness and learn from it.  The work  and time required has not been easy. In order to build this market over a decade, Mom had to be:

  1. dependable– this means you have to show up every week of the market. It allows customer’s to rely on you and what you offer. This is hard for small farmers who do not grow large volumes.
  2. communicative– you have to take the time to talk and listen to the customers to find out what they like, need, and want! Then you have to follow thru and either provide it or help them find it!
  3. educative– you have to take the time to help customers understand what you grow and what you do to get it to the market every week (planting, picking, packing, refrigerating, loading, fuel for transporting, labor, etc).
  4. collaborative– you have to support the market by working together with fellow vendors. Each week Mom makes a round to buy from other vendors and we love to send customers to other vendors. For example, we send customers to co-vendor Tracy Riley of Houston Country Gardens when they ask for perennial flowers, since we only grow annuals, and she does the same for us.
  5. and embedded in the community– it helps to know customers by name, where they work, and what happened last week in the news. We do not live in Milford, but we make it a priority to frequent its businesses and events often.

The best part about farmers’ markets is getting to know our customers. He or she could be the town mayor, a local school teacher, or a retired grandparent. They then go out into the community and tell everyone to go downtown for the “awesome sweet corn” from Little Wagon. Word of mouth truly is a small business’s best advertisement.

Personally, the market has afforded me many opportunities. I feel embedded in the Milford community myself. I have met several people I now consider friends, such as the local postmaster (he likes to hug me), a local news reporter (she likes to talk about running), and a fellow co-worker’s dad (he likes to pick on me and calls me “corn-girl”).  I love to be outside and I admit, its great exercise, too. Do you know how hard it is to pack and unpack two box trucks?!! It’s also my way of staying involved in the family farming business. I love to help customers understand the seasonality of produce and how to pick it. It’s great to be able to spend time with my family. Not only do I get to learn from Mom but I also get to see my grandfather, Pop-Pop Bob. He doesn’t like to miss a Saturday and gets several hugs and kisses from customers. I also have a good friend, Wendy, that shares my love for the market and comes every week to help us.  My younger sister, Amber, has recently joined in on the weekly ritual as well.

I plan to continue writing about farmer’s market activity throughout the summer. But I can’t end this post without saying thank you to all of our farmer markets’ customers. We appreciate your time and business and I hope my family can continue to serve local communities with fresh, local food for a reasonable price. In today’s world, I truly believe we take our easy access to food for granted.

Becky Vanderwende (Mom) at the 2005 Strawberry Festival explaining to the customer how to best care for the flowers she’s about to purchase.

Seaford Farmers Market

Mom and Dad always said to not be afraid to show customers our produce. We understand that people want to see that the product is good. I love showing them how full our ears are and how good it looks!