MANCHESTER, NH – A picture is worth 1,000 words, so they say. In that case, the following gallery from last week’s launch of the Manchester Community Market is the best way to summarize the array of locally-sourced produce, goods and products available weekly at the downtown open-air market. Thanks to the city of Manchester’s beautification efforts, Victory Park now features lovely green grass for rolling in, as brothers Cayden Parker and Paxton Benson discovered (see photo above), while their mom, Marissa Leclerc, found some terrific local buys.
Lea Longden of Manchester says she’s been coming to the market for the past two years.
“I come every week – you never know what you’re going to find,” says Longden. She appreciates that she can redeem her food stamps for double their value and invest in healthier foods for herself and her son, Joshua, 17.
“The fresh fruits and vegetables are wonderful, and today I’m looking at the fresh veal,” says Longden.
Ben Dobrowski of Green Hill Farms specializes in vegetables, herbs, cut flowers, cultivated mushrooms and other herbal products. Dobrowski, a return vendor from 2016, says he likes the new set-up, which moved vendors from the center of the park back toward Concord Street. Now, vendors can park trucks along the road, and patrons have easy access to all the vendors by using the Concord Street sidewalk.
“It creates a good flow. We came back this year after some debate, because the customer flow was down a bit by the end of the season last year, but we’re off to a good start,” Dobrowski says.
Like all the farmers who participate, summer markets are the mainstay of their livelihood, says Dobrowski, a first-generation farmer who says he learned a lot from his great-grandfather, who had a large garden.
“If you look back a few generations, everyone had a farmer in the family,” he says.
Lenny Buxton, a pig farmer from Henniker at Porkside Farms, says he returned because of the new market manager, Derek Lynch.
“Manchester used to be a great farmer’s market – it was second only to Concord. I’m hopeful that Derek will turn it around,” Buxton said. He has been raising pigs for 25 years. It’s a lonely business, and he’s a one-man operation, handling everything from raising the pigs to producing the byproducts, including a variety of sausage and bacon.
“The only thing I don’t do is slaughter them. To be honest, it’s a terrible time to be a farmer. If I were to start over, I wouldn’t do it. It’s OK, if you don’t mind living in poverty,” says Buxton, relating the hard truth of survival in an ever-changing economy, where supermarkets have exploded and expanded organic offerings.
He still believes buying direct from local farmers is the best way to keep the local economy moving.
“The key to the success of markets like this is the people. If they don’t come, the vendors leave,” Buxton says. By the end of the day, he had done well with sales, and says he was encouraged by the turnout.
Jan Paquette and her grandson, Hayden Bergeron, were manning several carts of annual flowers from Alive & Green. She’s also known as “the plant lady,” who supplies the flowers featured around the city through Intown Manchester’s beautification initiative.
Bill Maki and Melody Wyman looked comfortable in camp chairs next to a cooler of fresh, local seafood. They are volunteers for the New Hampshire Community Seafood CSA, and are at the market to sign people up for 8- or 15-week memberships.
This year there will be options for lobster and oysters in the Community Supporter Fishery program, which provides whatever the “catch of the week” is for participants.
“We never know what we’ll have, but usually throughout the summer we have haddock, monkfish, white hake, dogfish shark, pollock,” says Wyman. “This kind of program is extremely important to local fishermen – it sustains them,” she says.
Harry Wiser of Hackelboro Orchards in Canterbury is back, featuring his varieties of apples and tempting apple cider donuts. He says he freezes the cider from the annual crop and uses it in the spring to make the donuts. His wife, Linda Wiser, who normally helps out with the orchard stand, has her own space this year – whimsical fantasy face painting as part of her own business, The Artist’s View.
New recruits to the market this year include Pleasant Pastries of Hollis, selling cookies and cupcakes ranging from 1-$1.50, with a stand next to fellow market newbie Benge Ambrogi, an engineer who has taken his hobby of baking to the next level, by offering his all-organic fresh baked goods for public consumption.
He was officially sold out by 5:34 p.m.
“That was unexpected. I’m pleased about it,” Ambrogi said. “It’s so hard to predict how things are going to go in a market setting. I’ll admit I was a little pessimistic, but this is great.”
Ambrogi described his process, which he approaches using his engineering skills.
“When I start I take the temperature of the air in the kitchen, as well as the temperature of the flour, and the sponge, which I use as a riser. Based on all that, I adjust the water temperature,” Ambrogi says. “Today I had to cool the water down with ice so that the dough is exactly 76 degrees, which is critical for rising.”
He had fresh-based baguettes, soft pretzels and round loaves for sale.
Also new to this year’s market are Nikki and Mike Brown, of Bedford Hometown Coffee Roasters. They provide a variety of ground and whole-bean coffees.
Drema and Patrick Cody of Country Dreams Farm in Mason were busy with one of their CSA customers, Kim Keegan. Drema explained that they are about three weeks behind in planting vegetables due to the unusually rainy spring.
“Our field is mud,” she said. “We could probably get the tractor out there, but it will get stuck. We’re hoping to get out in front of the rain tomorrow to plant the rest of the eggplant,” which was great news for Keegan, who loves the eggplant.
“We have a half-share this year. I’ve never had access to a CSA before, and we love it,” she says.
Drema mentions that she received a personal message from Keegan’s husband, which simply said, ‘Thank you so much for growing my food,’ a sentiment that goes a long way for local farmers, says Drema.
“We have three acres right now, which isn’t enough for all the eggplant I started this year,” says Drema, who also loves eggplant, and will be featuring 13 varieties at the market this year.
John Blake of DJ’s Honey in Manchester was giving out spoonfuls of the amber bee nectar to passers-by.
“It’s always hard in the spring. Most bee keepers lose 40-60 percent of their bees over the winter, especially when the winter swings between hot and cold. The warm days confuse the bees, and they may leave the hive, and then they die off when the cold weather returns,” he says. That, compounded by the “hive collapse,” continues to add challenge to his livelihood.
“It’s not always easy, but these markets are a huge part of our success as farmers,” says Blake.
The market is open Thursdays from 3-6:30 p.m.
