Next Week Last Week for the 2009 Farmers’ Market

At the market today the city was taking a poll on the hours for the market next year. At about noon, 11 am – 3 pm was way out in front:

Also, back in August you could sign up for trees subsidized by the City for planting around the Island. Today they arrived. Like many good things, they came in the back of a truck:

Vine maples seemed much more popular than the red cedars. I asked one of the tree attendants why, and he said lots of people were worried about how tall the cedars get. But that’s the point: there are a lot of tall tress on Mercer Island but more get cut down all the time. So planting tall trees helps the remaining groves survive over time. And out thinking for getting one was that it’ll strengthen the trees around our house, and hopefully keep them from falling on us.

All of Mercer Island a Wildlife Habitat?

It was a week of causes at the Mercer Island Farmer’s Market:

Creating Wildlife Habitat on Mercer Island

IslandVision was there, encouraging all Mercer Island home-owners  to certify a wildlife habitat on thier property. They’re working with the National Wildlife Fund as part of a the national program.  In short, you agree to

• Provide food with native plants and feeders
• Provide a water source
• Provide cover
• Provide places to raise young
• Practice sustainable gardening

The good news about all the “provide” statements above is that having native plants and using sustainable gardening get you most of the way there without additional landscaping or expense. For example, mature trees can be a place for wildlife to raise young.

IslandVision were the ones organizing the tree givaway, and they were instrumental in getting the Farmers’ Market to Mercer Island in the first place.  They’ve got a bunch of sustainability projects.

Oh, and they were also giving out horse manure.

State Route 52o Info

A couple of bored guys from the Washington State Dept of Transportation had a booth also. They were explaining the benefits of the SR 520 bridge replacement and HOV program. The fact that they were on an island that sits on I-90, not SR-520, might have contributes to the lack of interest from the farmers market attendees and their resulting boredom.

Of course, a bike lane and good tranport on SR520 can do a couple of important things for Mercer Island:

1. Keep traffic off I-90, so we can get on and off the Island without gridlock
2. Give us a new biking loop: Lake Washington to SR-520 to East Side trails

Making room for the causes, there seemed to be fewer food stalls than before. I’m hoping that’s fall coming on, not lack of interest from merchants. But even in the rain last week there seemed to be plenty of foot traffic. And if you consider good pizza, cider and fresh veggies to be causes, there have always been a few at the market.

Tree-Up at the Farmers Market

Tomorrow and Sunday September 13 you can put in your order at the Farmers’ Market for subsidized trees for fall planting. Order either of two native species:

Vine Maple

If you go hiking you often see these trees on the edge of tall forests or in avalanche chutes. It’s a smaller tree with \beautiful fall foliage. King County recommends it for its “ability to hold stream banks and eroding soil,” so any of you living on steep slopes or beside ravines might want this one.

Western Red Cedar

“A grand and long lived tree” that’s better for level areas with some room to spread.  These will help strengthen some of our existing groves against blowdowns in the fall wind storms once they grow.

IslandVision, the local sustainability group, is organizing the sale and the City is subsidizing the trees. I suspect they’re buying in bulk from the Department of Natural Resources.

What to Do

The Farmers’ Market events page mentions the pickup date only, but IslandVision’s handy newsletter makes the logistics clear:

Stop by the IslandVision table on 8/30 or 9/13 at the MI Farmers Market to sign up for Vine Maple or Western Red Cedar (2 gallon size) trees to be distributed on Sunday, Oct 4 & 11th.  This is a great way to green up your place and reduce your carbon footprint–these species have been chosen because they are healthy sinks for carbon dioxide and do well in our pacific northwest environment.  Very low cost, as the City is subsidizing the bulk tree purchase under their sustainability initiative!

Trees seem to be going down on Mercer Island much faster than they’re coming up. The arborist thinks it’s a good idea to plant trees. And if you stop by to order a tree you can get a tasty cupcake or ice cream bar at the market.

Photo credit: Vine Maple, Mike Putnam. Western Red Cedar, Elle-Epp; flickr.

Time to Summer

Folks, there is a lot going on around here. Get your calenders out, Mercer Island. It’s time to “summer.”

Unusual Garage Sales

Notice Earthcorps lurking to the left, plotting good works for the summer.

This first garage sale is out of the ordinary because it’s the whole Island. Theoretically, at least. It’s at the MICC the Saturday.

And this garage sale is not ordinary because it’s cryptic message seems to be targeted to reach some character in The DaVinci Code. I can only guess that this sign does advertise a garage sale, perhaps at 4123 94th Ave, but you’ll have to break the code to figure out when.

Get Your Fish On

Affordable Seattle writes of a fishing workshop on Mercer Island from 1 to 3 pm on June 20. Crosscut noted last week that Lake Washington around Mercer Island is actually underfished, so get out there and catch some.

Into the Woods

At Youth Theater Northwest, til Saturday.

More Delicious Things

CultureMob alerts us to a Cheese Tasting at Bennett’s on June 24th. It’s a Cheese 101 highlighting Beecher’s cheeses, which Bennett’s uses to great effect in several dishes including their killer tomato soup. $50 (the class, not the soup) at 6:30 pm.

And in only-tangentially-related food news, a fun note: Starbucks’ new CIO worked a day at the Mercer Island ‘Bucks in November (North Island). Anyone notice or recognize him?

And finally, it’s June: the month where the Mercer Island Farmers Market finally re-opens. For those of you who have been jealously gazing at various farmers’ markets from Capitol Hill to Bellevue, like I have, our late bloomer will be here next weekend.

Odds & Ends

“Where Cupcakes Meet Fashion”

Falling into the odd, a bit of cupcake news: remember the delicious cupcakes at the Mercer Island Farmers Market? They’ve gone big. Cleverly-named blog CakeSpy covers Carrie Middlemiss and her startup Bella Cupcake Couture, which makes cupcake wrappers, and if I remember correctly, delicious cupcakes too. Here’s hoping the Farmer’s Market gets cupcakes again this year.

Better Baby Tunes

Also an odd but cool business, right here on Mercer Island: Rob and Lisi Wolf of Mercer Island run That Baby DVD, which says it’s not be like all the sweet and boring baby DVDs out there. The video on their site is worth checking out if you’re in the market for baby gear.

Click to go to their site and play.

Coldwell Banker Bain HQ Moving from Mercer Island

The Puget Sound Business Journal reports that Coldwell Banker Bain, the big Washington & Oregon real estate agency, is moving its corporate headquarters from Mercer Island to Bellevue. CBB has a lot of space in the North Island Commercial Center on 28th street, some of it a retail office, and it’s not clear if the move will affect this space.

Tent City Lawsuit Coda

Finally, an end: to the lawsuit over Tent City, dismissed by a King County court. The lawsuit was brought by citizens protesting Tent City against the city. “The claims were barred as not being timely.”

Mercer Island Farmers Market is Back, and Networked

For everyone who was as happy as I was to get a Farmers’ Market on Mercer Island, good news- it’s coming back. And it’s networked. A reader tipped me off that the Farmers’ Market now has a Facebook page. Once there, I found this Youtube video from MI-21:

Their webpage (I’m always a little confused about what you should find on an organization’s webpage and what you should find on Facebook) tells us it’ll be in the same location, Sundays 11 to 3, beginning June 21.

The Farmers’ Market sells food that’s more sustainable than Big Ag and it helps us keep farmland in Puget Sound. And it’s delicious.

First Mercer Island Farmers Market Sells Out

We were in town this weekend after all, and stopped by to see the long-awaited, first Mercer Island Farmers Market. The street was full,

and the cupcakes and clams were sold out when we got there:

Laureen Lapitan and her Pure Passion cupcakes, all sold out.

No more clams either.

In abundance, and not sold out, were flowers:

And there was music too.

Two musicians warming up; they sounded great.

And plenty of organic food:

Mmm- beef – pork- poultry- eggs.

but the only food available for immediate eating was some pizza, and it came with a long line. Likewise, the root beer stand had a long line. There could have been more stands altogether. This was a pretty modest market, and if the attendance at the first market is an indication, it could be two or three times as big.

Prices

What about the prices? Well, when you add the words “organic” and “Mercer Island” together, you’re in for some pretty steep prices. But they weren’t as bad as I had feared.

And it’s a producer/ grower-only farmers market- I hope that means the prices keep the small farms profitable. There’s something strange about having a few companies control our country’s entire food supply, no? And it’s nice to see that farms can still beat developers in parts of Puget Sound.

Thanks for the toil

Thanks to all whose hard work put this together- I’ll turn it over to Ken Glass, who commented on an earlier post with this:

Kudos to all the hard work by all the folks who envisioned and created the Farmers Market. I know a few of these folks and am so impressed with their vision, their hard work and their selfless commitment to making this a reality:

Maria Ackley
Nannette Bassett
Tanya Bednarski
Allison Campbell Schwartz
Cecilia Finnigan
Jason King
Tracy Landsman
Marcia Mellinger
Tamae Moriyasu
Lisa Odegard
Callie Ridolfi
Julie Sarkissian

Thanks for the info, Ken. I’ll start looking out for our own statue of Lenin.

You can read more and see the full list of vendors at the Mercer Island Farmers Market website.

Mercer Island Now Has a Farmers Market!

Just saw this sign at 40th and ICW:

Finally! We’ve been pining for one since we moved to the Island. If we weren’t going camping this weekend, I’d stop by on Sunday and take a few pictures and a few tasty, probably organic and locally-grown morsels.

Other goings-on at the Mercer Island Bulletin Board:

Youth Theater Northwest is performing Charlotte’s Web through August 10th.

Keytime claims you’ll learn to type in one hour:

And there’s a Boys’ Lacrosse camp, but I’ve been slow on keeping up with the Bulletin Board, so it looks like it’s over.

And it’s that season of the year: political signs are all over.

Will A Farmers’ Market Make Mercer Island More Like Capitol Hill and Fremont?

Of course we want a farmers market on Mercer Island. Lots of places have them- there are 37 in King County, according to the citizen’s group organizing ours.

But I can’t help but wonder: if we get a market, like Capitol Hill, Fremont, and Ballard, will Mercer Island become more like those neighborhoods?

Will we erect a statue of a famous communist and host a naked Solstice parade like Fremont?

Lenin at home in Fremont, WA.

Will we begin loitering and looking for local singles scenes?

Will someone start an MI-ku blog in the spirit of Hillku?
Life on the M-I
Is not defined by the edge
But by the middle.

Will we drink better coffee?

Espresso vivace coffee, courtesy Flickr.

Will we get a radical street fest like Ballard?

Honk Fest West in Ballard, courtesy Flickr.

Who knows what the future will hold. Personally, I hope it holds fresh vegetables and delicious jams, come whatever else may.

Mercer Island Farmers Market Update

In this blog I’ve previously asked– well, begged without shame– for a Mercer Island Farmers’ Market. Thanks to a group of active neighbors, plans are moving along. Here are the details, or download this document for more:

Location: North End Mercerdale Park on SE 32nd Street between 77th and 78th Ave SE
Period of Operation: August 10 through September 28 (may be extended into October)
Hours and Day: Sundays from 11 am to 3 pm

Tasty cheese, pretty flowers: what we have to look forward to with a farmers’ market.

The Mercer Island Community Fund put in some “seed” money- heh, heh. Thanks to Callie Ridolfi, the leader of the citizens’ group, who provided this information. Apparently they’re still working on things like traffic and waste services.

We’ll pay more than we would at QFC, but it’ll be local and fresh.