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Tucked away in a shady corner near Rockview Plaza in Parshall, five women stacked baskets of zucchini, lettuce, pickled vegetables, fruit preserves and rhubarb pie on folding tables. Customers arrived in waves in the late afternoon and early evening.
The market is one of two markets on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. During the same summer Thursday night hours, some neighbors arrived before the girls were fully settled and said, “I know I’m early!” Customers wandered through the line asking about the flavors of the pies and when the tomatoes would be ready.
Vendors featured a mix of new products and homemade quick breads, cookies, cakes and caramel rolls. Some baked goods included ingredients from fruit and vegetable producers in and around the city of 950. Parshall resident Joyce Waldock’s pies included rhubarb from her box and state-grown apples. Next week her zucchini will be zucchini bread.
The market, organized through Waldock, “keeps me out of trouble,” he told Buffalo’s Fire. “If I’m in the kitchen, I’m in the garden,” she said.
The rainy spring was a great start to the growing season, noted salesperson Linda Hovda; Her new onions were especially happy. Zucchini and cucumber plants benefited from the prolonged heat wave in mid-July. The grass “also needed some of that heat to get going and start producing,” Hovda said.
After retiring in 2015, she became a master gardener through the North Dakota State University program and soon began frequenting Parshall farmers’ markets. This Thursday, in addition to products, he sold new bread, pickles with flavors, jams and jellies. Her favorite blend is blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries.
Hovda can be stored during the summer and into the fall. He explained that the chocolates and preserves he offers depend on the time he has to prepare before the market. Waldock and saleswoman Anita Harrison echoed his words.
Waldock introduced the market about 10 years ago. “I don’t need food to go on the table and this is a way to use up the surplus,” he said. His vegetable lawn is almost twice the length of a basketball court, allowing him to harvest enough to feed his family, maintain food, and then sell new vegetables and produce ready-made products with the surplus.
Waldock, a Texas native, said she’s following in her father’s footsteps. When he retired, he was an active vendor at San Antonio farmers markets and she followed him.
Retired after 37 years of teaching, she began to promote her products. “When I started, Parshall didn’t have a farmers market and I didn’t even know of one nearby,” he said. “I asked myself: Will the network help him?”
“When I started, Parshall didn’t have a farmers market and I didn’t even know of one nearby,” he said. “I asked myself: would I network it?”
Most of North Dakota’s land is dedicated to agricultural production, but most farmers’ markets are located in denser towns, such as Bismarck, Grand Forks, Fargo. In smaller rural communities like Parshall, many families have their own gardens, Waldock said.
At first, a friend of hers gave recommendations and helped manage the markets; Gradually, Waldock took over. “When I train in school, I’m also looking to be an entrepreneur, so I’m like, ‘Okay, let’s practice what you’re preaching,'” she said.
The vendors are all local residents, many of whom have families who raise farm animals or grow grain or hay. They renewed their focus on family gardening in retirement, managing plots of land the average length of a basketball court. They are not harvested for family or friends, but rather new produce is brought to the market or sold as canned goods and pastries.
Vendor Anita Harrison said Parshall citizens or travelers coming to Lake Sakakawea most often notice it through word of mouth. Parshall Promoters, a chamber of commerce, advertises the event in its monthly calendar.
Harrison began hitting the market more than five years ago. On Thursday, he touted lettuce, carrots, zucchini, cucumbers, beets, green onions, homemade pickles and cinnamon rolls.
“I don’t need food to be passed to me and this is a way to spend the leftovers. ”
Another vendor sells bouquets of dahlias and snapdragons. Offering anything homemade or locally produced is the only criteria for membership, Waldock said. The city does not charge any fees to vendors.
Beth Erickson doesn’t know exactly how she started promoting her homemade doughnuts with Nancy Sandstrom, but the popular call led her to operate as “The Donut Ladies of Plaza, N. D. ”
At Thursday’s market, Erickson sold a half-dozen packages of expired buttermilk fritters with his sister. While Erickson was at the market, Sandstrom at home was preparing another batch to sell Saturday in Minot. Soon, they would be going to Garrison or batch delivery to fulfill local orders.
Parshall vendors set up tables at nearby locations, such as a Christmas market, an American Legion network sale, or events at the New Town Civic Center.
“We love to put on shows,” Erickson said. It’s a hobby, to sit here and meet people. ”
The market will most likely continue until the end of September; it will calm down when young people return to school; Last year this continued through the first two weeks of October. In the coming months, Hovda will have garlic, Harrison hopes to have white pumpkins, and Waldock will offer pumpkins.
Our purpose is to help our network stay informed. The Buffalo’s Fire newsletter is published at 12 p. m. CST every Wednesday. Our virtual news site is published through the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, a Native women-led nonprofit media organization founded in Bismarck, North Dakota. We can be reached at 701-301-1296.
Our purpose is to help our network stay informed. The Buffalo’s Fire newsletter goes live at 12 p. m. m. CST every Wednesday. Our virtual news site is published through the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, an Indigenous women-led nonprofit media organization founded in Bismarck, North Dakota. You can reach us at 701-301-1296.
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