BLYTHEWOOD – With over 60 vendors, 500 people, and great weather, the annual Blythewood Artisans Market was a great event to kick off spring in Blythewood.
Held at the amphitheater in Doko Meadows Park, the event included not only artisans and crafters, but Irish fiddle music (Jim Graddick) and the Randy Lucas Trio.
Food vendors offered hand held sausages, Mexican street corn, brick oven pizza in a truck, and a lemonade stand.
“And, of course, we had lots of pastries and baked goods,” said Michaela Barno, the market manager. One of the most popular vendors was the muscadine wine maker.
Strolling through the vendors, shoppers found pine straw baskets, woodworking products, paper crafts, soap, candles, and much more.
“We have it all!” Barno said. “Our vendors have so many one-of-a-kind gifts that you won’t see anywhere else.”
Full Market Starts Next Month
Next month, the full every Wednesday Farmer’s market will open on April 17. It will be a celebration of the market’s ten-year anniversary of growth. The celebration will include a live band and food trucks, complete with a champagne toast.
“We’re very excited to let people know we’ve been serving for 10 years now, and it really has grown so much,” says Barno. “We’re in the park which is such a great place to enjoy.
“Families are at the playground, they’re coming to and from the music school, they’re in between school and work and baseball practice and soccer practice, and they’re coming by the market and getting their regular groceries, and so it’s a central part of the atmosphere of what Blythewood is going to be as it continues to grow.”
Among her hopes for the market as it enters its second decade: that it will become a central place for education for those who wish to learn about food-related skills like gardening, raising chickens in the back yard, baking, and canning.
Barno says she would also like to start a farm-to-table dinner in Blythewood and hopes that the town will build a permanent market pavilion in the park.
“Our tagline is that we are Blythewood’s marketplace for homegrown groceries,” Barno says. “We love our local grocery stores, too, but farms are a part of the Blythewood history and legacy, and we want to keep it that way.
“The Farmer’s Market is an experience – entertainment and shopping in the great outdoors – right here in downtown Blythewood.”
