Tea For Two

Ding ding! Round Two. Back into the ring of market stalls after a brief month of furious growing. I was back at Dinas Mawddwy farmer's market with a table laden with the finest fresh vegetables in the valley and sales expectations at rock bottom given the weather forecast of gales and torrential rain. Only five other sellers had bothered turning out, the hall seemed empty. The chap who runs the market had already given up on the whole affair due to the poor attendance in previous months and presented us with the unfortunate news that this would be the last one.

But the rain held off and the wind never really picked up till later. People began to drift in and mosey around the goods on offer, or have a chinwag with other customers. One or two people took cucumber slices I was offering as a taster (since the cucumbers themselves are a bit offputting being fat and warty) and complimented me on the flavour, even buying some. Bags of chard, spinach, salads and french beans began to disappear from the table, my bag of money accumulating coins accordingly. The hall rarely emptied completely as it had done last month.

5 Aug : First harvest of runner beans, for delivery to veg bag scheme
I just managed to scrape together 5 portions (1.25kg)

The other difference was that this time I had double the number of employees – instead of one there were now two of us looking after the stall. Not that the pace of selling quite warranted this vast workforce but it meant I had someone to chat to while she knitted a series of interlinked woollen rings.

12 Aug: Second harvest of runner beans for delivery to veg back scheme.
There were more than enough to fulfil my 5kg quota (20 portions)

Shauna* has come to help me for a couple of weeks, living in a tent on my land and mucking in with the gardening, cooking, watering and the hundreds of other little tasks that make up my days, in return for which I keep her alive by feeding and watering her. It is the first time I've had someone stay and work with me for more than a couple of days, apart from my very first week here last year when Matt and Mary stayed to get me settled in, and it certainly does make a number of differences to the life I have become accustomed to. For a start there's the extra labour which allows me to focus on digging over the new beds while she keeps on top of the weeds in the existing garden. And then there's the actually being with someone else for much of the time, who has thoughts other than my own and expresses them with words of her own choosing, and who listens to and understands the words I might choose to utter. Conversations are conducted. Tasks are discussed and shared. Pheasants are simply not up to this level of communication - it makes a nice change.

Back in the village hall the customer flow had dried up, it was after 1pm and everyone was tucking into their Sunday lunch, except us. Sally** who runs the organic pork stall was not prepared to take the final closure of the farmer's market lying down and took it upon herself to push for it to continue, under new management. All the stall holders present wanted it to carry on. A couple of local community members agreed to take it on under their wing, provided Sally herself did the legwork of encouraging more stall holders to come and collected the rent from them each month. More posters advertising the market are to be made and put on display the week leading up to each event to promote more custom. I left feeling positive, and over twenty quid richer. And who knows, maybe my tomatoes might have ripened sufficiently to try selling by next month!
　
*her real name
**not her real name.