It’s finally here. The indoor winter Bridgeport Farmers Market season has been successful, but organizers are excited to move the market to the great outdoors for the summer season. That season debuts 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday at the market grounds at Bridgeport Conference Center.

 

BFM Board Member Debbie Workman said Sunday kicks off the eighth season and that 45 vendors, including some brand new ones, will be represented.

 

Thanks to vendors’ investments in high tunnels and other early season growing techniques, Sunday’s opening day will feature more fresh produce than any other opening day in years past, Workman said.

 

In addition to seasonal produce, the market will feature farm-raised proteins including chicken, beef, lamb and pork, as well as flowers, coffee, artisan wares and a host of other must-have products, Workman said. Providing live music will be Skip and Cyndy Mason of Taylor County. BFM will also kick off the second season of the Power of Product “POP” Club for kids.

 

A brand new project – the BFM Book and Bean – will also be launched Sunday. Workman describes the volunteer project as a cross between a library, coffee shop and bookstore. It will feature locally-roasted coffee by Quantum Bean Coffee as well as a selection of books and periodicals which focus on local food, healthy eating, children’s reading selections and more. Sunday, Bridgeport’s Anna Smucker will be there with her children’s book, “Outside the Window.”

 

“We encourage you to come, hang out, drink coffee and start a conversation,” Workman said.

 

Among new vendors to this year’s regular market season is Whimsical What Nots, owned and operated by Weston’s Becky Wine. Though this is her BFM debut, she has been dreaming up whimsical gardens and related items for about two years. She became inspired to launch that passion mission as a business after visiting the Stonewall Jackson Jubilee a couple years ago.

“I started my business about two years ago, but even before that I was making fairy gardens because I like them,” she said.

Some of the miniature gardens do include fairies, but not all of them, Wine said.

 

“They’re just whimsical, including garden succulents and plants with little touches like bedpans or Maw and Paw salt and pepper shakers,” she said.

 

Wine said she loves setting a theme for the garden and thinking of plants and objects that will fit that theme.

 

“Some are outdoor themes and feature things like coal buckets and some do have fairies and gnomes,” she said.

 

Wine will also have both outdoor and indoor fairy gardens, as well as herb gardens and hupertufa containers.

 

“They look like concrete but it’s a lighter mixture of concrete and peat moss, made in all different shapes,” she said. “I plant things in them and I sell some empty for people to make their own gardens.”

 

In addition to dozens of her own product, Wine will have a sampling of her son-in-law Joey Iephew’s whimsical tire planters and other garden-related items. Coming soon to their collection are chainsaw carvings, which should be available later in the season.

 

The market will also be represented by two community groups: the Liberty High School Future Farmers of America, selling potted plants and flowers, and Stars and Strides Therapeutic Equine Center with information about their work with emotionally troubled children and adults.