“We’re more than produce,” David Ash with the Fort Dodge Farmers Market told the Webster County Board of Supervisors recently.

Ash made a presentation to the Board Tuesday detailing the continued growth of the Farmers Market, which is currently scheduled to celebrate opening day on June 14.

“This is our 41st year,” said Ash. “We have 20 new vendors, and everything from pork and meat sales, bakers, produce vendors, and maybe even someone with pottery.”

Ash said there are multiple vendors coming from outside of Fort Dodge including small businesses from Lake City, Eagle Grove, Duncombe, and even from Ames.

-Submitted photo
The Kettle Korn vendor is a regular at the Fort Dodge Farmers Market.

“We truly are more than produce,” said Ash. “When the Farmers Market started 41 years ago, it was basically just produce and honey. Now, we have people that do crochet and bakers. We have an herbalist coming up on Wednesdays. We’re very unique.”

The Farmers Market, which is held from 1 to 5:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays at Graham Collision, 11 N. 25th St., will have something for everyone this year, according to Ash.

“We’re excited about this year,” said Ash. “We’re a unique market in the area. We’d like to invite everyone to come out and enjoy the Farmers Market. We’re hoping to see a continued increase in customers. We’d also like to publicly thank Kemna for allowing us to use their parking lot. They’ve been kind and gracious about that. Over the past two years that we’ve been there, we’ve been able to donate charity money out of that. We’ve never been able to do that in the past, so we’re looking forward to another year of charitable giving.”