Four times a week, Michelle Canales loads up her large white van with hundreds of pounds of produce and trucks over from her family’s home in Concrete to set up a table at the local farmers’ markets held in Seattle and Bellevue.
Her family owns Canales Produce and has several small farms in Concrete and Yakima, where they grow mostly asparagus, grapes and cherries. Most of their crops are sold at farmers’ markets and to Small Potatoes Urban Delivery (SPUD), one of several home delivery services in Seattle.
They live in Concrete, so twice a week Canales’ husband drives to Yakima with five dozen 20-pound boxes that he’ll fill with produce from their farm. Her job each week is to take the fruits or vegetables to markets in three Seattle neighborhoods – Columbia City, West Seattle and the University District – and one in Bellevue.
“No breaks for me. I get three days a week to do laundry and clean my room,” she laughs. Her three daughters, ages 16, 14 and 12, help with housework as well as harvesting crops.
“They get up at four in the morning, put on their asparagus belts and bucket and grab their knives and go cut it,” she says.
At the Columbia City Farmers Market one recent Wednesday, Canales stands behind a long folding table topped with three large plastic bins filled with bundles of dark green asparagus shoots. The market is just underway and shoppers are slowly meandering among vendors selling honey, pastries, flowers and squash blossoms.
Canales smiles timidly, clasping her hands in front of her as people casually approach. Like other farmers here, she isn’t pushy with her product and welcomes customers to select their own bundles. She smiles openly as people gather nearby, offering to bag up their selections or giving advice on how to cook the tender shoots.
It’s a scene that’s repeated itself many times over in the seven or eight years she’s been working the markets. She has her regular customers, although none is on hand this day. But today new customers are trickling in and soon a short line forms as people pull cash from their wallets to pay for the $4 bundles.
The biggest challenge, she says, is knowing how much to bring each week. At Columbia City, 200 pounds is usually enough.
“I get some regulars through here,” she says, as she drops a couple of bundles into a customer’s plastic bag. “Some people don’t want it that week, or whatever. I go to the University District; I can sell easily 500 pounds. And I sell out.”
The University District farmers’ market is the largest of seven local markets operated by the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance. Canales says she can make roughly $2,000 in one day at that market, compared to the smaller Columbia City market, where she’ll sell about $400 worth of produce.
“I wish there were more University Districts,” she says.
That market, Canales says, is where she can see how eating local is catching on. Shoppers there “really are true organic consumers,” she says. “I seem to do better and better there each year.”
The extra money is a blessing, too, especially this year when cold, damp weather has taken a toll on the family's asparagus crops.
“I can walk between two 100-foot rows and only come up with a handful,” she says.
Canales is hoping her strawberries – always a popular treat at farmers’ markets – will do better than the asparagus. The family also is planting tomatoes and melons to make up for the lost asparagus.
Having a variety of produce may also help them stay competitive in an expanding market of people peddling organic goods.
Canales says lately she’s noticed more vendors selling organic cheeses and meats. There’s also increasing competition with other farmers now offering asparagus at markets where she used to be the only one.
“Every year I see more,” she says. “It’s going to be harder and harder for a vendor to keep high prices.”
Melanthia Peterman is a Seattle journalist and mother of a young boy. She blogs about gardening while raising a child at www.gardeness.com.
