Bumper crop

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/07/2022 (1187 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s Tuesday afternoon at the Wolseley Farmers Market, where market co-ordinator Mica Szpigiel has one eye on what appears to be a storm off to the northwest, one eye on a jewelry vendor setting up a canopy-style tent in suddenly windy conditions and another eye on… oh, wait, she’s run out of peepers.

A third hand would probably be helpful, too, Szpigiel contends, as she juggles a laptop, two phones and a notepad while seated at a picnic table at the market’s home site, Robert A. Steen Community Centre, 980 Palmerston Ave.

If Szpigiel looks familiar, that’s because she spent the past two summers there as a vendor, selling specialty bagels under the banner Szpagels by Mica.

A serious knee injury that required surgery currently prevents her from being on her feet to bake for hours on end. That’s why she jumped at the opportunity to serve in her present role when the opportunity presented itself in March.

This year marks the Wolseley market’s 10th anniversary. Befitting such a milestone, not only are there more scheduled market dates than in previous seasons — 40 by the time things wrap up in October — there are also more registered vendors than ever before, peddling everything under the sun. Clouds, too; it’s a rain-or-shine event.

To make that happen, Szpigiel spent a few weeks in April sorting through close to 150 applications from parties interested in selling their goods there this summer.

Not just home-based enterprises, such as Jaya’s Preserves, which turns out small-batch pickles and relishes, but established businesses as well, one of which, Flora & Farmer, closes its store at 686 Portage Ave. entirely when staff are on location selling jams and jellies.

“We have 85 vendors signed up this year, 25 of which are here on any given market day,” she says, listing the hours as 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., every Tuesday and Thursday. “We have about 10 so-called anchors you can expect to see at every market, while others only come on Tuesdays or Thursdays, or every second Tuesday or Thursday. That way people are almost guaranteed of seeing a different selection every time they pop by.”

Szpigiel isn’t just a paid proponent of the market, she’s a dedicated shopper, too. She rarely returns home without bacon or sausages from Zinn Farms, a free-range operation based near Springstein. Same goes for a libation from a section of the market she laughingly calls booze alley, which today is housing Barn Hammer Brewing Co. and Shrugging Doctor Beverage Company.

“I usually limit myself to (shopping at) two vendors a week, otherwise I’d be endorsing my paycheque over to my bosses,” she says with a wink.

If that’s the case, Szpigiel may want to leave her wallet behind entirely on Aug. 4, when the Wolseley Farmers Market hosts an evening event from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. More than 100 vendors will be present, four times the usual number, as well as food trucks, a beer garden and a stage for live music.

“Our vendors sell the most fabulous things in the world, and we couldn’t be happier with the support we receive from the community, week in and week out. On Aug. 4, however, we want everybody in the city telling themselves they need to get to Wolseley.”

With the evening affair right around the corner, here is a quick look at three longtime Wolseley market vendors who will be participating.

JONATHAN’S FARM

It’s a safe bet the Wolseley Farmers Market wouldn’t exist if not for Jonathan Stevens, owner of Jonathan’s Farm, a six-acre operation in the vicinity of Lockport.

Stevens grew up in Wolseley and was still living in the neighbourhood 12 years ago when he started a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program to distribute fresh vegetables he was growing on rented land north of the city. People were invited to sign up for weekly shares of whatever was in season, which they would then fetch from his home on Ethelbert Street when it was ready for them.

Thing was, Stevens signed up so many CSA members, he was having trouble fitting all the vegetable-laden totes on his doorstep come pick-up day, which forced him to go hunting for a larger distribution area.

“I approached Robert A. Steen (Community Centre) and after they agreed to let me use their grounds, it only seemed natural to combine it with a farmers market-type setting,” he says.

To his way of thinking, if people were already coming there for their subscription vegetables, why not grant them the opportunity to shop for other things while they were at it?

It started with a handful of vendors, maybe four, grew to 10 by the second year, and hasn’t slowed down since, he says.

A plus of having the Wolseley market serve as a CSA pick-up depot to this day is that it draws people from every corner of the city. One person who drives from Selkirk every Thursday tells Stevens she wouldn’t dream of buying produce from a grocery store ever again.

“I also see a lot of people from the neighbourhood who arrive by bike or with a wagon to take their purchases home,” he says, standing next to a table packed with fresh vegetables from his farm for those who aren’t CSA members. “I don’t live in the area any longer, but it is nice to get back twice a week during the summer, to do the markets.”

WOOD FORGE SHARPENING

At the rate he’s going, Bret Gordon won’t have a shred of hair left on his extremities by September.

As owner-operator of Wood Forge Sharpening, the first thing Gordon does after putting a new edge on a knife, garden tool or pair of scissors is run the blade along his forearm in a shaving motion, to ensure he did the job correctly.

“That’s why I wear shorts, in case I ever have to move onto my legs,” he says, positioned next to his office on wheels, a retrofitted bicycle he uses to tow a chest of tools and foldout work bench from his home on Valour Road.

Gordon, 31, founded his business in 2019. He and his partner had recently moved in together and one morning he mentioned that her knives were exceedingly dull compared with his. He said he’d be happy to sharpen them for her, using whetstones he’d purchased years earlier when he held a job sharpening knives at a fishing lodge. Hey, knock yourself out, came her reply.

“It absolutely blew her away how big a difference it made,” he says, noting he was unable to work in his chosen profession at the time, owing to a repetitive-motion injury. “She was familiar with the (Wolseley) market, and since I wasn’t working, and since (sharpening) didn’t seem to bother me, injury-wise, she said maybe I could offer knife-sharpening here.”

Little surprise, the first market he attended was a bit of a bust. After all, who would know to show up with their blades, he told himself. Within a few weeks, however, scores of people were doing just that after twigging into his services.

He hasn’t missed a Wolseley market since August 2019, and has also built up a steady clientele at other sales around the city, including the South Osborne and St. Norbert farmers markets. (Yes, he bikes to those, too.)

“There may be higher highs at a market like St. Norbert, simply because of how many people it attracts. For me, though, Wolseley remains my best market, on a dollars-per-hour basis,” he states. “People in the neighbourhood have supported me tremendously, though I do have to constantly apologize for not sharpening push mowers. There are so many in this neck of the woods I should probably get on that soon.”

1882 FRUIT-BASED HOT SAUCE

Isn’t it romantic? And pungent!

A while back, Patrick Michalishyn, founder of 1882 Fruit-Based Hot Sauce, so-named for the year the Winnipeg Fire Department was established, was approached by an engaged couple whose first date had been at the farmers market. They told him one of the items they went home with that day was a bottle of his raspberry-scotch bonnet hot sauce. Now they were wondering if he could make them commemorative bottles of that identical sauce to hand out as wedding favours at their June nuptials.

“I figured they’d want a picture of themselves on the label but even better, they gave me a shot of their cats to use instead,” Michalishyn says, standing in front of a booth boasting bestsellers such as mango habanero, pineapple jalapeno and blueberry ghost pepper.

There is also a new concoction available, one that incorporates garlic scapes, a gift from another Wolseley market vendor.

“Last year he planted something crazy, like 500 heads of garlic, but he didn’t know what to do with the scapes,” he continues, referring to the long, green stalks that grow out of the bulb. “He asked if I wanted them and I was like, ‘Sure, I’ll turn them into a hot sauce.’”

Since establishing his biz in the fall of 2017, Michalishyn has become a familiar face at outdoor markets throughout the city. Between April and October he sells his line of sauces as often as seven days a week, in between his production duties. The Wolseley market remains one of his favourites, partly because he lives within walking distance.

“Wolseley is a fantastic community and the people are so welcoming and friendly,” he says, mentioning a woman whose home is minutes from the community centre, who has given him explicit instructions to set aside a one-litre jar for her whenever he comes up with a new hot sauce. (She’ll be pleased to learn he’s putting the finishing touches on an orange-flavoured one, his first foray into citrus fruits.)

Besides wedding favours, Michalishyn has also produced souvenir bottles of hot sauce for local bands — the Dirty Catfish Brass Band are big fans — who hand them out at shows, apparently.

Next month, he’s even been enlisted to prepare a special sauce for a baby shower. The kid is hot tonight or what?

“It’s surreal, it’s weird at times, but I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he says.

David Sanderson writes about Winnipeg-centric restaurants and businesses.

david.sanderson@winnipegfreepress.com