Indoor markets offer similar wares as their summer counterparts

Locally grown produce is hard to come by when cold winter winds whip the Midwest.

That hasn't stopped a slowgrowing movement of winter farmers markets from popping up in Eastern Iowa.

Just as in summer, the winter markets offer vendors an opportunity to sell, and for customers, a place to socialize and buy local products.

“We come here quite often,” Jim Nelson, 70, of rural Mount Vernon, says of the Mount Vernon Winter Market.

Nelson says he likes buying local and enjoys the fresh products available at the market.

He and his wife, Kathy Nelson, made an outing earlier this month with their daughter and two grandchildren, leaving with bags loaded with cider, bread, meat, candy, walnuts and apples.

Some vendors who sell fresh produce in the summer change their offerings for winter markets.

David Miller, 43, jokes about the “free range” chocolate truffles he and his wife, Mickey Miller, 42, sell at the Mount Vernon market.

The two grow tomatoes, beans, peas and other produce on 21 acres near Mount Vernon, but wanted a product to sell at the winter market, which they co-manage.

Cindy Cary, 50, of Solon, ran out of samples of her fivefruit bumbleberry pie at a recent Mount Vernon market.

Last year, Cary made more than 8,000 pies to sell at Iowa City and Mount Vernon markets in addition to selling produce that she grows for summer markets.

For vendors like Lois Pavelka, 69, the transition is easier.

Pavelka, a former school nurse, sells hormone-free lamb, pork and beef at both summer and winter markets. Customers who ask are invited to visit her rural Mount Vernon farm, where grain is grown for feed and the animals are free-range.

“In other words, it's oldfashioned,” Pavelka says.

Mount Vernon and Springville have a collaborative relationship, with winter markets scheduled on alternate Saturdays so vendors can go to both.

Springville market manager Lena Gilbert, 51, says a winter market was tried three years ago on a one-time basis and started again this season, with one per month.

Customers from Cedar Rapids, Marion, Iowa City and other towns go to the Springville and Mount Vernon markets.

Tammy Neumann, 47, Iowa City Farmers Market coordinator, says Iowa City has been doing indoor markets on a limited basis for four years.

About 70 ven dors sold at a November market, with 90 in December. The two were the only markets planned for Iowa City this winter.

Cedar Rapids has long considered offering a year-round indoor farmers market. Proponents are looking at a site in the New Bohemia district in southeast Cedar Rapids.

Dubuque has winter markets every Saturday from November through April.

“It's the products not found in your grocery store,” promoter Liz Dueland, 44, says of the artisanal cheeses, wines and other items sold in Dubuque.

Harriet Wenger of Hiawatha, who sold soup mixes at the Mount Vernon market earlier this month, says more towns would offer winter markets if they could find indoor space for them.

Wenger, 63, says customers want to find the same local products throughout the year.

Cornell College sophomores Elizabeth Brown and Lorena Moore-Karppinen, both 19, bought jam, eggs, meat, cheese and apples after walking to the Mount Vernon market earlier this month.

“This is great,” MooreKarppinen said. “Fresh food is worth it.”