Online farmers market is set

There will be a new way to purchase local goods online in Nelson County this month.

Jessie Carter, 28, of Faber, has created Locally Grown Nelson, an online farmers market that connects local producers with consumers via the Web site http://www.nelson.locallygrown.net.

“It’s open to farmers or crafters or bakers,” Carter said. “It’s a producer-only market, so you can’t buy things and resell them, but the growers set up an account on the Web site.”

Carter said producers would have a page on the Web site where they can describe their farm or business, post pictures of products and a list of all the goods they’ll have for sale that week. Each account is free for the producers to set up and they set their own prices for the goods.

Buyers can log onto the Web site during the set hours of 8 p.m. Saturday night to 8 p.m. Monday night to place their orders. Then, every Wednesday between 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., the buyers can come to the Rockfish Valley Community Center in Nellysford to pay for and pick up purchases.

Eight percent of the sale goes back to the market, to pay for expenses, Carter said. The first market is set to open for sales at 8 p.m. March 14.

“It’s great for the occasional grower,” Carter said.

The Nelson online farmers market is part of a larger network of Locally Grown Web sites, which have farms and producers from all over the United States.

The idea to start an online farmer’s market in Nelson County came to Carter while she and her family were visiting friends in Tennessee, she said. They had started up a similar market in their area using the same online program.

“I was just inspired talking to her, about what they were doing and how great it’s been for them,” Carter said. “They have a pretty small market and they did $170,000 in sales last year, which blew me away. I got home and started to look into it a little bit and talk to some people and decided to go for it.”

Carter said that that visit was just over two months ago and that she has been working on starting up the market ever since.

There are already 11 producers signed up for the market, including Carter’s own farm, Carter’s Homestead.

“One of the big things for us was that we, we’re a small producer,” she said. “We’ve gone to farmers markets before and sold things but we often found that we had excess, but it wasn’t really enough to warrant paying the fees, setting up a booth and then going to market. So this just seemed that even if I couldn’t get anyone else signed on, this was great for me if I can get people to participate because then I can sell the excess that we have.”

Carter, who has a degree in sustainable agriculture from Sterling College in Vermont, said she also wanted to do something to support the famers in the area.

“I wanted to provide them an outlet and it just seemed like such a fabulous program,” she said. “I thought if I could do this, I could help people and why not?”

Producers have until March 5 to sign up for the first market, which is set to open on March 14 at 8 p.m. Goods will then be available for pick up on March 18 at 3:30 p.m.

Those interested can contact Carter by e-mail or call (540) 470-0324.