Full of fresh ideas

Tillamook Farmers Market features bounty from the land and sea

Brickyard Farms owner Shannon Slay

By Jordan Wolfe

 For the TODAY

Tillamook Farmers Market aims to offer a little extra on top of the typical bundle of carrots or pint of blueberries — a sense of community.

“One of the things that we have tried to do — and I think we've been successful at since we took over — is we want the farmers market to feel like a really fun space that you would want to walk down to on a Saturday morning and just hang out for a bit,” said Market Manager Sayde Walker.

Every Saturday through Sept. 26, a stretch of Downtown Tillamook will transform into a buzzing community space of dedicated vendors and equally dedicated patrons soaking up the ambiance of a market that aims for joy, which includes weekly live music and free activities for families.

“We have cultivated a really awesome group of people who enjoy spending Saturdays together and hanging out together and having fun,” Walker said. “And if they are having fun and enjoying themselves, the customers will also enjoy themselves.”

That essence can be seen at the southern entrance of the market, where one of the first booths isn’t under a tent, it’s out of the back of a retro Chevrolet pickup where Brickyard Farms owner Shannon Slay is offering the produce she grows and the products she makes. 

“Not only am I the first, I'm a pretty flashy set up here, pretty eye-catching, so it helps draw people into the overall market,” Slay said. “It gives me a chance to meet my customers, meet my community and serve my community.”

Being able to provide for people has been one of the most fulfilling parts of Slay’s life. She will be at the market every Saturday with a truckload of seasonal produce from her organic farm and plant nursery and is in the second year of selling freeze-dried goods.

“A lot of our produce now goes into making these freeze-dried soups and snacks,” she said. “Everything that's in our freeze- dried stuff, we grow on the farm.”

An upcoming freeze-dried product? Pickles.

“I love pickles,” Slay said.

On the other side of the market, another vendor is selling a different type of product his family has been growing since Ulysses S. Grant was president: oysters.

“My family started their first oyster farm, I want to say, in 1873,” said Pearl Point Oyster Co. owner Max Wiegardt.

Wiegardt is a fifth-generation oyster farmer and second-generation farmer on Netarts Bay. He grew up on the Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery in Netarts and took over Pearl Point Oyster Co. three years ago and officially opened March 1.

“It's the freshest oyster you'll ever have,” he said. “We harvested this morning — let me check — about an hour and 45 minutes ago.”

According to Wiegardt, oysters from Netarts Bay are extremely clean due to several characteristics of the body of water.

“This time of year, I think the raw oysters are awesome,” he said. “They have a nice little light sweetness, along with all that Netarts briny-ness.”

Peppered among the farmers, Tillamook’s market also features many vendors selling their handmade artisan goods.

“I have jewelry-makers and soap-makers and basket-makers and candlestick-makers and all of the things that you can think of that you could make.” Walker said.

One of those makers is Ryan Scott of TwoGunsPanda, who handcrafts cement pots for plants with a touch of the macabre — grimly realistic skull-shaped planters.

“I wanted a planter pot and I couldn't find one that was a skull that I liked and that didn't look like a Halloween skull,” Scott said. “So, I took a replica skull and carved a plaster version of it, turned it into a pot, and then just couldn't stop.”

Scott has been creating these pots for six years and selling them at the Tillamook market for three, where they greet passers-by on his table.

“They definitely cause a little bit of a reaction in folks, which is kind of great, because that's still connecting on some level,” Scott said. “That's the whole point of art, right? It's just to connect with other people.”

Sitting in the bed of her truck as the first market of the year opened recently, Slay said she is deeply committed to the Tillamook market — it’s her exclusive one and has been a mainstay for roughly 10 years.

“I'm one of the oldest vendors here at the market, so it's kind of nice to be able to be like this old gray dog on the end,” Slay said. “The Tillamook Farmers Market is probably one of the best markets that I've been to on the coast.”

Tillamook Farmers Market is open from 9 am to 2 pm every Saturday, with live music from 10 am to 1 pm, through September 26 on the corner of Laurel Avenue and Second Street in Downtown Tillamook.