To prepare for farmers’ markets most stallholders, the growers, farmers and food producers, spend long hours the day before harvesting and preparing product.

After this long hard day they have to get up very early and drive to market, set up their stall and spend long hours selling. It involves hours of standing behind the stall, often in poor weather conditions; cold throughout the winter, rainy, windy etc.; ready for any customers that come along. The most successful stallholders know that to be successful they must be there every week so they can get to know their customers and build up trust in the quality of their product. Most stallholders will be selling at markets every Friday and Saturday and many do a Sunday market too. That means most of them will have to give up every single weekend of the year to work! Actually, that is the reason we don’t run markets between Christmas and New Year, so we can all have a weekend off!

If you asked them if they wanted to give it up though most would say “No, I love it”; they love being part of the market with the atmosphere and meeting all their customers, chatting all day and serving their public. Hats off to them!

This Saturday it will be Easter Saturday and it’s always a fabulous market packed with stalls. Tulips will be in, there will be special Easter cake from Faithfull’s, legs of chalk down lamb for the Easter lunch and a whole lamb roast at Hinton Marsh Farm, goose, duck and chicken eggs at various stalls, luxury chocolate truffles from the Artisan Baker, new season asparagus and tomatoes and lots more besides.

This week we will also be hosting an interesting mobile art exhibition. The formal name of the exhibition will be trailer (as in, coming soon...) and it incorporates the work of five female artists who are in the second year of a fine art degree at Stroud College. The exhibition aims to bring art to the people and “out of the white cube” and will highlight the diverse styles of the group with photography, painting, miniature models, sculpture and glass all featuring.