The city of Port Orchard is home to the annual Port Orchard Farmers’ Market, open every Saturday from the spring to the fall between April and October. This year, the Farmers’ Market is celebrating their 45th professional season serving the community of Port Orchard, opening on Saturday, April 15, 2023 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

At each market, several local vendors set up booths or tents to sell their products in the Port Orchard Waterfront parking lot; from locally-grown produce to hand-crafted gifts, their goods are available for all Port Orchard visitors.

Though many vendors have made consistent appearances over the past 44 seasons, newcomers like Foxglove Farm are an integral part of the market community as a whole.

“We began at the Port Orchard Farmers Market in June of 2021,” said Erin Taylor from Foxglove Farm in an email interview. “We didn’t attend the market last year due to various reasons, but we’re excited to return again this market season!”

Among the many farmers’ markets around Western Washington, Port Orchard’s has been both a customer and vendor favorite.

“We have been vendors at other markets around the Puget Sound area, but the Port Orchard Farmers’ Market has overwhelmingly been our favorite,” Taylor said. “The market staff are well organized, the rules and guidelines are clear and reasonable, the variety of other vendors is great, and the customers are wonderful!”

Each weekend this popular market operates, hard work and dedication goes into the opening and success of each vendor, and Foxglove Farm is certainly no exception. According to Taylor, market days are long and a lot of work, starting the night before with loading the truck with nonperishable goods and lasting into the evening of the Farmers’ Market.

Josh Taylor, co-producer with Erin Taylor at Foxglove Farm, “gets up somewhere around 4 a.m. on market day to harvest, wash, and load all the produce, then we head out to Port Orchard (a 40 minute drive from Longbranch [where the farm is located]).”

Loading the truck and the trip to Port Orchard is only the beginning of the Taylors’ market adventures – Erin Taylor typically sets up and rearranges the booth until it is just right for both vendor and customer usage, and finally, “once the market opens, there’s a pretty steady stream of customers.”

The customer traffic keeps the Taylors on their toes and provides a significant opportunity for community engagement and sales, which they greatly enjoy.

“People ask questions about our produce, our yarn and soap, how everything is made or grown, where our farm is located…and we love to tell all about how our little farm works,” Taylor recalls.

Market days die down towards the end of the hours, and Foxglove Farm takes this opportunity to pack their products and organize their sales to finally head home and “collapse on the couch.”

This hard work has resulted in both social and business benefits for Foxglove Farm. The connections and enjoyment that the market provides is invaluable to the success of vendors, their customers, and their relationships amongst each other.

To Taylor, “having the opportunity to sell our goods directly to consumers is incredibly rewarding and we’re so grateful the Port Orchard Farmers’ Market is there to facilitate those interactions between [vendors] and the people of Port Orchard!”

More information about Foxglove Farm can be found at their website, https://foxglove.farm/, and they will be open at the kickoff of the Port Orchard Farmers’ Market on Saturday, April 15, 2023 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.