As sustainability becomes an increasingly more important aspect of business in the face of climate change, we value even the smallest changes that our vendors make to be more green. In celebration of Earth Month coming to a close, we want to highlight just some of the unique practices that our vendors take to be more sustainable and to encourage the public to do so as well.
Bringing a reusable tote bag or produce bags to the market is a great way to reduce plastic waste on a personal level. Many vendors will allow bulk produce to be weighed and sold in your own bags. One such vendor, The Mushroomery, offers package-free shopping by allowing customers to fill any reusable bag with bulk mushrooms and selling them by weight. Many of our vendors use minimal packaging or opt for paper instead of plastic when it comes to pre-packaged products. Merryheart Farm and Gardens, which sells some pre-packaged baked goods, only uses plant-derived cellophane to wrap their desserts.
Have you bought something jarred or bottled from the market, and kept the container? While you could use these jars in your own home, many vendors offer to refill these containers, or to simply reuse them. BNF Kombucha will refill bottles and growlers for a discounted price. Humble Bee Honey, Riverbend Farm and Orchard, Blessed Bee, and Rooted Remedies will all also reuse any jar or bottle brought back to them to be refilled with product and sold during a future market day. Earth’s Rising Farm, who sells plant starts, reuses plant plugs and labels that customers have brought back after planting their starts at home.
Produce farms often implement practices like crop rotation and composting to keep their soil as nutrient-rich as possible for future crops. Cover cropping is another method of doing so, where non-cash crops are planted with the intention of covering a plot of soil to later be incorporated, enhancing the soil’s nutrient content and health while aiding water percolation and preventing erosion. Both Wild Child Farm and Winter Green Farm make use of cover cropping on their farms.
Rotational grazing could be likened to crop rotation for livestock farming, allowing for patches of grazing land to regenerate their greenery after a grazing period to make the most out of pasture land. PK Pastures and Fog Hollow Farm both implement this technique. Rooted Remedies Apothecary makes use of a similar practice in their wildcrafting, only gathering material from areas with an abundance of it, called regenerative wildcrafting.
Preventing food waste is another key part of achieving a higher level of sustainability as a person, household, or business. Upriver Organics does so by donating less-than-perfect produce to local organizations like 86 Hunger and CORE, who redistribute them to those in need. The Vegan Farmer, which makes and sells prepared food at the farmers market, composts all of its food scraps for use on Good Earth Organic Farm. One of our newest vendors, Humdinger Vinegar, uses “ugly” apples to make its apple cider vinegar, and then gives the resulting pressed apple scraps to local farms to use as animal feed.
Consideration for wildlife in an effort to preserve biodiversity can be done in a variety of ways, like mitigating the use of pesticides. Winter Green Farm is “salmon-safe” certified, meaning that their farming practices preserve water quality and do not endanger fragile salmon ecosystems. The Wheel, a brewery, uses salmon-safe certified grain to brew some of its products, which maintains water quality for potentially affected salmon populations from the grain growing and harvesting process. Dragon Song Farm, a flower vendor, uses beneficial insects as a form of natural pest control, and uses a natural garlic spray in place of chemical pesticide to combat leaf curl.