The Lake Cowichan Farmers Market is moving to Central Park, after a successful late-season trial last year.
They are also changing to Sundays from Saturdays.
One of the issues with its previous location of Ts’ uubaa-satx Town Square was parking, but it was not the only reason for the move.
Lake Cowichan business woman, Jenn Pollner, who’s been one of the driving forces behind getting the market going, agreed that more easily accessible parking for visitors was needed.
“You kind of drive past that downtown area before you even realize you’re there and there’s nowhere to pull over until you get down to Saywell Park. People who live here know that there’s parking around at the Seniors Centre but you’re trying to get the tourists to stop and have a look around, and they drive past before they even realize you’re there at the Square. They don’t always want to turn around and come back,” she said recently.
A decision was made to try somewhere else.
“At the end of last [season], they tried four weekends at Central Park, and they were quite happy with it, plus it’s a big beautiful park, with the fountain and everything,” she said.
On top of that, there are washrooms at Central Park, an amenity lacking at present at Town Square.
“But, there is also just more flat land. Technically, part of the Town Square space we were using for the market actually belongs to the library parking lot. And, if the market is going, you can’t access the library in the same way,” Pollner said.
But the choice for change was made by the vendors themselves.
“And they are also going to change [the market] to Sundays in hopes that more of the vendors that are at some of the larger markets will be able to come on Sundays. Honeymoon Bay is on Saturday and so is Duncan. They did a survey amongst the vendors this year and that was the unanimous decision: to have it on Sunday.
“They also had a couple of very successful Christmas markets with quite a few people who could come out at Christmas time but couldn’t come out in summer because they were already committed to another market. Hopefully Sunday will be great,” she said.
And the market’s schedule is also being rejigged.
“They are just going to run it from June 18 through to Sept. 10: mostly just the summer months. That’s when most of the vegetables are going to be ready, particularly up here in Lake Cowichan when we start planting so much later. We’ll start selling when we’ve got some things ready,” she said.
The next challenge is growing the size of the market.
“They are definitely looking at more vendors. We want to make it grow,” she said. “It has to be: Make it, Bake it, Grow it, as part of the farm market regulations but anybody can make anything. It doesn’t have to be just farm based. Craftspeople and artisans are welcome, too.”
If people are interested in becoming a vendor at the market they should email l.c.farmmarket@gmail.com or message Lake Cowichan Farmers Market on Facebook.
