Fort Berthold Reservation farmers’ market draws a lot of love

‘It’s a hobby, sitting out here and meeting people’

Tucked away in a shady patch near Rockview Plaza in Parshall, five women piled baskets of zucchini, lettuce, pickled veggies, fruit jams and rhubarb pie onto folding tables. Customers showed up in waves throughout the late afternoon and into early evening. 

The market is one of two on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. During its regular Thursday summer evening schedule, some neighbors arrived before the ladies had fully set up, saying, “I know I’m early!” Customers meandered down the row, asking about pie flavors and when tomatoes would be ready. 

The vendors offered a mix of fresh produce and homemade quick breads, cookies, pies, and caramel rolls. Some baked goods included ingredients from produce growers in and around the town of 950. Parshall resident Joyce Waldock’s pies featured rhubarb from her patch and apples grown in-state. Next week, her zucchini might be zucchini bread.

The market, organized by Waldock, “keeps me out of mischief,” she told Buffalo’s Fire.“If I’m not in the kitchen, I’m in the garden,” she said. 

The rainy spring had provided an excellent start to the growing season, vendor Linda Hovda noted; her fresh onions were particularly happy. Zucchini and cucumber plants had been enjoying mid-July’s extended heat wave. The garden “needed some of that heat too, to really get going and start producing,” Hovda said.  

After retiring in 2015, she became a master gardener through the North Dakota State University program and shortly started attending the Parshall Farmers’ Markets. This Thursday, in addition to produce, she was selling fresh bread, multiple flavors of pickles, jams, and jellies. Her favorite combination is blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries. 

Hovda cans throughout the summer and into the fall. She said the sweets and canned goods she offers depend on the time she has to prepare before the market. Waldock and vendor Anita Harrison echoed her words.

Waldock began the market about 10 years ago. “I don’t want food to go to waste and this was one way to use up the extras,” she said. Her home garden is almost twice the size of a basketball court, allowing her to harvest enough to feed her family, preserve food, and then sell fresh vegetables and prepared goods from the excess. 

Originally from Texas, Waldock said she’s following in her father’s footsteps. In his retirement, he was an active vendor at San Antonio farmers’ markets, and she often tagged along. 

In retirement after 37 years of teaching, she began considering selling her extra produce. “When I started this, Parshall did not have a farmers’ market and I didn’t even know of one close by,” she said. “I wondered, ‘would the community support it?’” 

Most of North Dakota’s land is in agricultural production, but most farmers’ markets are located in denser populations – such as Bismarck, Grand Forks, Fargo. In smaller, rural communities like Parshall many families maintain their own vegetable gardens, Waldock noted. 

In the early days, a friend of hers gave advice and helped manage the markets; slowly, Waldock took over. “When I taught school I also tried to do entrepreneurship, so I thought ‘Okay, let’s practice what you preach,’” she said.

The vendors are all local residents, many with families running cattle operations or growing grain or hay crops. They renewed their focus on home gardening in retirement, managing plots that average half a basketball court in size. What they don’t harvest for family or friends, they bring fresh to market or offer as canned preserves and pastry. 

Vendor Anita Harrison said Parshall residents or vacationers at nearby Lake Sakakawea find out mainly through word of mouth. The Parshall Promoters, a chamber of commerce, advertises the event on its monthly calendar.

Harrison started coming to the market more than five years ago. On Thursday she was selling lettuce, carrots, zucchini, cucumbers, beets, scallions, homemade pickles and cinnamon rolls. 

Another vendor often sells flower bouquets featuring dahlias and snapdragon. Offering something homemade or homegrown is the only criteria for joining, Waldock said. The city charges no vendors’ fees.

Beth Erickson can’t remember exactly how she started selling her homemade donuts with Nancy Sandstrom, but popular demand led to their operation as “The Donut Ladies of Plaza, N.D.” 

During Thursday’s market, Erickson sold a half-dozen packs of old-fashioned buttermilk donuts with her sister. While Erickson was at the market, Sandstrom was at home preparing another batch to sell on Saturday in Minot. Soon, they would be off to Garrison or delivering batches to fulfill local orders. 

The Parshall vendors occasionally set up their tables at nearby venues, like a holiday market, a community sale by the American Legion, or New Town’s Civic Center events. 

“We like doing the vendor shows,” Erickson said. “It’s a hobby, sitting out here and meeting people.” 

The market likely will run into late September, though it quiets down as kids go back to school; last year, it continued into the first couple of weeks of October. In the coming months, Hovda will have garlic, Harrison hopes to have white pumpkins, and Waldock will offer butternut squash. 

References:

Local Foods Map, North Dakota Department of Agriculture, https://ole.ndda.nd.gov/localfoods/?layers=farmers-market