by David Mendez
The Lake Forest Park Farmer’s Market will mark the opening of its newest season on Sunday by reaching out a hand to care for three of its own.
Three long-time flower vendors — Yeng Garden, Yang Lee Lao Flowers and Long Farm — will each be gifted money that the LFP Famers Market and Third Place Commons gathered in a fundraiser to help support the farms. Each experienced tremendous losses during the severe winter floods that wracked western Washington in December.
“They’re all family farms, and like we say, we’ve known them for generations,” said Lake Forest Park Farmers Market Manager Christina Martin. “We know her daughters, her granddaughters, her grandson, who all come to the market and help. And same with Long Farm and Yeng Garden; we’ve known them for generations, and they are family for us, too.”
Checks will be presented to the farms during the market’s opening ceremony on Sunday, which is expected to include a special guest. On Friday, the Lake Forest Park Farmers Market announced that it will be visited by Gov. Bob Ferguson, as well as the Mayor Tom French and members of the city council.
The ceremony will mark the farmers market’s 21st year of operation as a community-driven program focused on bringing fresh, quality food to the town. And the operative word, Martin suggested, is “community.”
“What makes this market so unique is that, in 21 years, if a farmer misses a market, the shoppers find me — ‘Where’s Alex? Is he OK? Did something happen to his kids?’ No, his truck broke down on the way to the market,” Martin said. “It reminds you how wonderful people and society and community can be.”
The floods were devastating to the farms. The fields of Yeng Garden, Martin said, were under water for two weeks, causing them to lose most of their perennials and all of their tulip bulbs. All of them, she said, lost flowers and important equipment.
“People don’t realize how much money goes into these flower farmers, how much money they spend on bulbs and perennials every year to make sure they have the best flowers at the market,” Martin told The Osprey. One of the farmers, she said, has spent $6,000 to replace their tulip bulbs alone. And though Yang Lee Lao and Yang Gardens will be at Sunday’s first Farmers Market of the season, Long Farm won’t be for the first two weeks of the season.
Missing market sales early in the season can be devastating for farmers. For the most part, farmers don’t even begin to break even until late summer or early fall, after they’ve caught up on paying for seed, bulbs, fuel and other supplies.
“For any farmer, whether it’s a flower farmer or a vegetable farmer, the first few weeks of the market is vital for survival, because they haven’t made any money basically through the winter,” Martin said.
After learning how much flood damage the farms experienced, the Third Place Commons board began raising funds in February to offset damages, including a GoFundMe page.
All told, the checks will amount to $1,500 each.
“I think it’s easy for people who weren’t directly impacted by the flooding to forget how lives were changed from that flooding,” Third Place Commons Executive Director Silje Sodal told The Osprey. “It’s important that, as a community, we support our farmers and our vendors. They are a part of our community, and they have been for many, many years.”
The Lake Forest Park Farmers Market opens Sunday, May 10, and runs every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. until October 18. For more information, visit www.thirdplacecommons.org/farmers-market.