Frontenac Farmers Market ends season on a chilly dark day

Craig Bakay | Nov 01, 2018

“Yes, surprisingly enough, we don’t plan to come out next week in the cold,” Frontenac Farmers Market director Laura Simmons said last Saturday as the Market closed for the season.

Even though is was a chilly day with overcast skies, the rain held off in the morning and there were a number of customers for those vendors that braved the weather.

“It’s OK,” said Simmons. “There’s not much on my table this week.”

One vendor who did still have some produce was Mike Janssens, who had several varieties of “antique” apples and did a rather brisk business.

Janssens dressed in the Halloween spirit with a Napoleonic era British redcoat uniform and greatcoat.

“A couple of other vendors told me they’d be dressing up,” he said. “They didn’t.”

But it worked out, he said.

“The uniform gives me the opportunity to showcase the antique varieties,” he said. “Such as Talman Sweets (1850s), Northern Spies (1870s) and Russetts (mid-1700s).

“These are a friend’s apples as our 400 trees are still a bit young.

“But you’ve got to get people to try these varieties.”

For Simmons, it’s now time to get things ready for the Christmas Market they put on in conjunction with Prince Charles Public School Dec.8.

“There will be 60-65 vendors and it will be an opportunity to come out and do some Christmas shopping,” she said.

This was Simmons’ first year as market director and she said she’ll likely hang on to the job next year.

“We’ll be 14 next year, actually one of the longer running markets around,” she said. “This year was actually a very good year and we’re very pleased with the traffic, community support and all the cottagers that came out.

“We’re growing and plan more events like music and the EarlyON/Library puppet show was a wonderful pairing.

“For me, I like feeding people healthy food — I’ve been doing it for 45 years — and I like the socializing.”