Benny Westcott
A Tuesday summer tradition in Sweet Home is set to extend further into the fall this year, as the Sweet Home Farmers’ Market, which usually runs June through September, lengthens its duration to include the first three Tuesdays in October. The market takes place every Tuesday afternoon at the large parking lot across the street from the Sweet Home Public Library.
The change comes as a result of Market Director Belinda Bayne deciding to try the Lebanon Downtown Farmers’ Market schedule, which runs from the third week of May to the third week of October.
“We did start the third week of May, a few weeks early, and that went really well,” Bayne said of this year. “So we’re seeing how it goes for the next three weeks to see if we’ll continue to do that for next year.”
The market has anywhere from 10 to 14 vendors on a given week, coming from as far away as Jefferson.
Along with fresh fruits and vegetables, other items sold include mushrooms, tamales, beef and pork, grain, beans and baked goods. Live music entertains patrons thanks to a grant from the Linn County Cultural Coalition.
Speaking on the farmers’ market so far, Bayne, also a farmer at the market herself, said “It’s going pretty well. We have a lot of loyal customers. The area by the library has been really nice for us this year. People are coming out and the season has been good for our farmers produce-wise. We’re always amazed and grateful for our support from the Sweet Home community.”
Bayne said that the past few years the market was negatively affected by a houseless population that was living in the parking lot area. But this year has been better in that regard, she noted.
“This year we haven’t had the homeless problems,” Bayne said, adding “The city has cleaned up the area – they cut some limbs and put some bark dust out for us in the area – so it’s been real nice around there.”
Remembering the homeless issue the market endured last year and some years prior, Bayne recalled “They [houseless individuals] would sit at the corners and make noise or sit across the street and yell, and just line up. They would sleep in the parking lot we’re at, so the city would have to come in and clean it up, because we get a special permit for that parking lot. So they’d move them, and they’d all sit across the street and just wait for us to leave, and then they’d come back.”
This had an effect on the market’s attendance, in Bayne’s estimation. “People just didn’t want to come because they made them feel uncomfortable and unsafe.”
With those problems behind the market, Bayne said “I know my sales as a farmer were up, and I heard from other farmers that their sales are up as well.”
The farmers market matches Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients up to $20. “If somebody comes up and takes $20 off their food stamp card, we’ll give them an extra $20 to buy fresh fruits and vegetables with,” Bayne says.
Even not accounting for the extra weeks in May that were added this year, there have been more SNAP transactions at the market in 2023 than in 2022, with 397 transactions this time around in June through September compared to 364 last year. And this year there has been 86 new SNAP customers so far, up from 61 last year.