The Frontier Village Farmers Market opened just as it has done every Saturday for the last few years, however, this time it was in the parking lot of The Home Depot instead of the shopping center for which it is named.
“The owner of Frontier Village wanted to use it for something else,” Burkett said. “It’s a shame because after three years, it felt like home, but we’re excited to be at Home Depot. We’re also very pleased that many of our long-time customers followed us over here. It felt like a homecoming seeing all the familiar faces.”
When it came time to figuring out where to move next, vendor Jay Glazebrook came up with the idea of the parking lot, Burkett said.
“This is a community market and every one of our vendors owns a piece of the market so we took suggestions and made an agreement based upon what was mutually beneficial for all of us,” Burkett said. “When I first approached Home Depot I fully expected them to say no, but they have bent over backwards to get us an agreement. The manager, Jennifer Guarino, said I want this for the community. It’s good to have someone who understands and supports what we do.”
The market only had six vendors the first week it started in 2012 so having 12 to kick off the first week in a new location was great, Burkett said. She hopes the new location will bring more people out.
“I’m willing to ride it out and I know we’ll build it back up,” Burkett said. “The nice thing is Tehama County truly is an agricultural megacenter that produces all year round. We don’t stop eating because winter comes and there are things produced in the fall to sell. In the fall we have pumpkins, squash, pomegranates and other things.”
The market will run 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. from March until November when it runs 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for the rest of the year.
A shade cloth was purchased with money from a fundraiser at the previous location, when the group hoped to build a permanent home. It went to local farmers to help them grow their produce, Burkett said.
Gerrie Larson of Larson Apiary is one of the long time vendors the others often refer to as the “queen bee of the market”, Burkett said.
“I’ve been messing around with bees since 1975,” Larson said. “I’ve been doing it 40 years and I want to do it as long as I can because I enjoy it. Beekeeping is something you either love or you don’t. I wanted a part-time job, but I never thought it’d be anything like this.”
She got her start after watching keepers catch queens and stopping to ask them what they were doing, which lead to a job, Larson said.
“My first week I got stung 17 times and it never discouraged me,” Larson said.
For the last seven years, Livier Cayetano has been making tamales and taking them to different farmers markets in Red Bluff under the name Tamales Jalisco and on Saturday, she was at The Home Depot while her two of her older children, Ricardo and Luz, ran a stand at the Red Bluff-Tehama County Chamber of Commerce market at River Park.
She used to have a taco truck, but the cost of the city license was too much and the farmers market is a way to still sell her products and make a bit more in profit, Cayetano said.
“God is good,” Cayetano said. “I think it will be better here. There are a lot more people who come out to Home Depot.
On average, Cayetano makes about 400 tamales, which she sells at the two Saturday markets and the Wednesday evening market downtown.
Vendor Rose Castor of Rose’s Birdhouses and More was attending her first farmers market in about three months, she said. She sells pies, breads and other crafts along with the birdhouses.
“We’re getting more customers,” Castor said. “Whether they’re buying or not, they are stopping to look. This move was a blessing in disguise.”
