Farmer’s Market promising more vegetables this month

HALEYVILLE - The Haleyville Farmers Market at Rocky Ravine Park has been opening as scheduled, this summer, but shoppers have had to be early risers to arrive before the produce sells out.
At least one vendor, Iverson Farms, has posted photos of a small selection of produce being sold at the market to its Facebook page on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings at around 6 a.m., the time the market opens, during most of June. Many of those posts were later updated to indicate that the produce had sold out, and that generally seems to have happened by 8 a.m., but on some days, it happened even before 7 a.m.
A June 10, Facebook post stated that Iverson Farms expected to have available heirloom slicing tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, green beans, squash, zucchini, green and burgundy okra, bell peppers, hot peppers, sweet corn, cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, watermelon and cantaloupe “over the next weeks/months.”
Winston County Extension Coordinator Zack Brannon, whose office is responsible for issuing the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries growers permits that allow producers to sell their products, said he had issued 11 growers permits for the Haleyville Farmers Market, down from last year’s 18, although he said not all of those who received a permit last year showed up to sale at the market, with some of them instead selling their produce in Jasper and Moulton.
“The problem is they don’t have anything in yet,” Brannon said. “Right now, we’ve only had about one or two people that have really shown up and sold anything this year.”
He said that’s been typical at this time of year for the last couple of years. “Usually the growers here don’t have anything to provide until July,” he explained.