HAZARD — The Perry County Farmers Market is in full swing despite last month’s drought and this month’s torrential down pours.
Betty Jean Roberts from Owsley County has been selling her produce at the market for years. She said she has always raised gardens, and over time they just continued to grow. She had never sold her produce before the Perry County Farmers Market opened, but now she is a regular and her hobby of gardening has grown into a farm where they raise a wide variety of produce.
“You really couldn’t call what we do now gardening,” Roberts said. “We have a truck patch, it is about 16 acres.”
At the farmers market this year, vendors are selling everything from cucumbers to eggplant, to different varieties of peppers.
“We grow just about anything if the weather permits us,” Roberts noted.
It is the weather that has made growing difficult this year. With record high temperatures in June and then record rains in July, plants have had a difficult growing season. Roberts said that her husband checked on their second planting of green beans only to find very few had made it through the difficult weather.
“That has been what has hurt us so bad,” said Roberts. “He was ready to hang it up last night.”
“It doesn’t look good for that second planting,” she added, though they are hopeful for their third round of beans as the weather begins to mild out heading into fall.
Roberts said that she enjoys coming to the market and she hopes to continue, weather permitting.
“I love meeting people too,” she said. “I enjoy it.”
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