Poplar Head Farmers Market opens Saturday

With everything from squash to grass-fed beef and herbs to soaps made with goat milk, the Poplar Head Farmers Market will kick off its inaugural weekend on Saturday.

The new market will have a story time for children, art activities, fresh flowers and a series of demonstrations to entertain visitors. There will also be artists, musicians and local restaurants selling food.

But, the market’s director said it is first and foremost a place for fresh and locally-grown food.

“This is a farmers market, and we’ll have 70 percent farmers there,” said Julie Bishop.

on Saturday along with two restaurants — Blue Moon Cafe and Mildred’s Restaurant and Tea Room — and five vendors selling soaps and lotions, wood art, handmade jewelry, honey products and pottery.

The idea for the market came while Bishop was attending a Keep the Wiregrass Beautiful meeting where Dothan Mayor Pat Thomas was speaking. She approached him after the meeting and told him Dothan needed a market like Birmingham’s Pepper Place. Thomas agreed and told Bishop to go for it.

So she did.

Bishop started looking around at Wiregrass farmers markets, meeting local farmers and talking to them about the possibilities. She recruited Paula Hennig, whose family owns Waterberry Farm in Slocomb, to be the new market’s manager. The two approached The Downtown Group with a request to operate as a committee of the group. They then turned to the Wiregrass Museum of Art and the Houston-Love Memorial Library to provide an educational component for children.

The museum will have a tent set up for agricultural art activities. The Houston County Farmer’s Federation donated money for 25 new library books, which will be read to children each Saturday and then added to the library’s collection.

And First Baptist Church of Dothan is providing volunteers to man an information tent.

Bishop said she hopes the Poplar Head Farmers Market will compliment other Dothan markets that operate at the Houston County Farm Center and at First Assembly of God Church on U.S. 84 West. Several of the farmers participating in the Poplar Head market also sell at the other markets.

“We don’t want to do anything to hurt our farmers markets and their livelihood,” Bishop said. “This is all about the farmers.”

Bishop said worries over food contamination has led many people to locally-grown produce.

“The scare over our food supply has become more of an issue in the last several years,” she said. “ ... We need to be able to trust where our food comes from.”

One way to do that is to know who is growing your food, Bishop said.

“If we can meet the farmer face to face and ask him what he puts on his vegetables to make them grow, get to know the farmer, meet his family, we can build a level of trust and help support that family,” she said. “We can keep them in business, keep their children interested in farming and increase the acreage of farms.”

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If you go ...
What: Poplar Head Farmers Market
When: 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays through June and July
Where: Downtown Dothan near civic center, along Museum Avenue, museum grounds and Poplar Head Park.
Cost: No charge to look; produce prices vary by farmer; No sales tax charged on food items sold by growers.
Other: At 10 a.m. each Saturday, there will be entertainment or demonstrations in Poplar Head Park. This Saturday’s park event will feature a children’s program on bees and a demonstration on beekeeping by a state apiary inspector for all ages. Other events will include a canning and preserving demonstration, musicians, and cooking demonstrations for both children and adults led by Chef Paul Fripp, owner of Bistro.