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Bridle Ridge 113 Appaloosa, 1999, 3/2, 1809 sq. ft., $147, 000. Relocating. Must sell. Call 361-212-0393.
“I think they said you have to eat the rind for that,” the Victoria County Farmers Market manager said.
The market’s board of directors voted last week to close the market on Thursday due to a lack of produce.
Customers sat in their cars around 11 a.m. Thursday waiting for a break in the downpour so they could shop from the three vendors.
“I haven’t gotten any at my house yet,” the Thomaston resident said of the rain. “The crop’s all gone now. It wouldn’t make much difference I guess.”
The market started in April, but the number of vendors selling each week has dwindled as their crops died.
Local farmers needed the rain earlier in the season.
Now they are harvesting crops, so the rain does more damage than good, making the farmer’s job of gathering produce a muddy one, vendor Anton Kaliba said.
Kaliba, a farmer from DaCosta, joked about turning the tomatoes and okra he had left into fertilizer. Living roughly 11 miles from Victoria, Kalib did not expect to be able to sell the remainder.
The other vendors, Thompson and Ronnie Jacob of Yoakum, said they will go somewhere else to sell after Thursday.
“I’ve got a big walk-in cooler I can take this back to,” Jacob said. “I’m gonna take a couple of weeks off before I decide where I’ll go sell next.”
Thompson will head to the Cuero Farmers Market, he said.
A steady, continuous stream of customers came through the market from 10:30 a.m. to noon, turning vegetables over in their hands and thumping on watermelons.
“It seems like they just got here,” Victorian Frank Miller said. “It’s only July 3.”
Retired from the Navy, Miller, a self-proclaimed gardener, grew a garden this year, but it died a few weeks ago from the heat, he said.
“It’s kind of sad to see the close of the market,” Miller said. “We’ll miss ‘em, but we bid them all the best for next season.”
Brandon L. Leonard is a reporter for the Advocate. Contact him at 361-574-1286 or bleonard@vicad.com.