News

Our Board of Directors has decided to move the market to the Taos County Courthouse Parking Lot this season. We are excited for a new location which allows our farmers easier access to vend with their vehicles behind their booths. The Plaza was no longer available for our use as decided by the Town of Taos who ‘own’ it as a public park. Thank you for understanding & joining us in for the best fresh local food in our new location starting May 13th!

You can expect the same quality and variety of what our rich regional agricultural lands have to offer. We are excited to work with the Taos County officials who are attuned with the needs of our rural community most importantly farmers and working with us for a great event. We believe in our market, our farmers and our products no matter the location. We’re feeling the longevity of a secure location that respects the needs of our hardworking farmers and we are hoping all of Taos and our lovely weekly customers will join us!

Every Saturday 8am-12:30pm at the Taos County Courthouse Parking Lot
May 13-October 28, 2023
(plus 3 November Markets 9-12)

The map location is:
105 Albright St Taos, NM 87571

A Local-Food-Only Thanksgiving is possible by shopping at Taos Farmers Market this November!  You can get all the fixins for your big holiday meal right from the beautiful agricultural lands around Taos.  We will also have local turkey, growing outside on green pasture from Tierra Sagrada Farm located in Bernalillo, NM – this is currently the closest location raising pastured turkey for sale on a market sales scale.  Please reserve your turkey TODAY by contacting Sage at: tierrasagradafarm@gmail.com for turkey pick up on 11/19/22 at market, see more info below this text box.

What I love most about November Markets is the food carefully grown all season that our farmers have prepared for winter storage. I love nothing more than eating local all year round, luckily we can store winter staples such as garlic, onions, dried red chile, beans, chicos, blue corn atloé, honey, winter squash, root veggies, meat, apples, carrots, soap & lotions, etc….I also believe a strong blub of garlic makes a perfect holiday gift! But theres something LOCALY GROWN for everyone on your list be it food or body products or the holiday dinner itself.

Join us 9am-12pm ON the Plaza the first 3 Saturdays in November. All November Markets are weather permitting meaning if it is snowing Friday night or Saturday morning market could be cancelled, cancellation notices will be on our Instagram @taos_farmers_market or on our Facebook page  here

Site Manager Job Description

Requirements: Employee needs to be at the Market site at 6:00 am to set-up and must stay until the Market is completely cleaned up and closed-down, no later than 2:00 pm. Employee needs a vehicle equipped with a trailer hitch to pull the Market’s trailer to the Plaza (Market Day site). Employee needs to be comfortable with pulling, backing and parking a trailer. 

Term: Contract starts on the last Saturday in August and continues every Saturday through the third week in November for a total of 13 markets. Contract is for the season and paid semi-monthly.  Starting at $15/hour.

Summary of Tasks:

Site Set-up: 

• Pulling the Market trailer to the Plaza each Saturday morning
• Setting up streets signs on the way to the market early on Saturday mornings
• Setting up at the Plaza:
  • Putting up banners and signs 
  • Setting up road blocks
  • Unloading Info Booth supplies/merch
  • Helping Retail Manager set up Info Booth as needed
  • Setting up extra canopies, chairs and tables

During the Market:

• Checking in vendors and assigning booth spaces for day vendors
• Generally helping Vendors as needed
• Collecting completed applications from new vendors
• Collecting Vendor fees 
• Enforcing Market rules (See “Vendor Agreement” for all rules)

• Recording Vendor attendance
• Recording Customer attendance
• Coordinating with Retail Manager & Assistant Retail Manager on all Market Day business: cash bank, EBT/SNAP sales, WIC, merchandise ordering, Daily Accounting sheets, etc. and helping in Info Booth as needed
• Answering questions from vendors & the public
• Coordinating and overseeing volunteers as needed
• Passing out info/surveys/etc to Vendors as needed
• Coordinating with Business Manager as needed to plan musicians, special events, cooking demos, etc.

After the Market: 

• Allowing in Vendor vehicles around roadblocks, keeping out non-market traffic until 1:30pm
• Packing all Market equipment and supplies into trailer
• Checking Plaza for garbage, take trash to dumpsters, etc.
• Picking up signs and banners
• Returning trailer to storage area

If the Site Manager is unable to fulfill his/her duties for a particular Saturday during the season, they are responsible for finding their replacement so that the duties of this contract are covered.

8/6- Lisa Joyce
8/13- Steele Brothers
8/20- Sanji
8/27- Zephaniah Stringfield

If you enjoy the music at market please show your support with a tip, we are on a tight budget and our musicians play for much less than we would like to be able to pay them.  Thank you!

Join our Farmers with all their fresh local produce at the Library Parking Lot 8am-12:30pm for this one day only where we move the whole market so that the Fiestas de Taos can happen on the Plaza. We will still have many of our regular vendors and live music by John Barber. Park at the Town Hall Parking lot just next to the Library Parking Lot where we will be set up for easy access to fresh local food!

We will return to the Plaza 7/30/22 and for the rest of the regular season 8am-12:30pm through 10/29/22.

JUNE MUSIC:

6/4- Marlo Mortensen
6/11- The Quijano Wood Family Band
6/18- Nick Hans
6/25- Jack Lorang

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We are happy to announce that The Puppet Theatre los Titiriteros, Cristina Masoliver & her puppets
will be returning to market!

Come enjoy the show this month on June 25th!
It will include 2 full length puppet shows (1/2 hour each show) shows begin at 10am & 11am – See taospuppettheater.org for more info

This special update is only for our customers who use EBT benefits at market:

We just wanted to write to let you all know what the issue was last week with the EBT machine.  The company that leases us the machine & connects us for our transactions sent us a new EBT machine.  When Solomon and Sierra were trying to get the machine to work last week we just expected it would allow transactions since it was connecting to the cell tower and had data capabilities so we couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working (in the past troubleshooting at market usually allowed us to eventually get connected).  I spent all week dealing with the company and on both sides we couldn’t figure out what the confusion was between their system and our machine. Unfortunately the machine we have currently is defective, so they ordered me a new machine yesterday finally but it will not be here by tomorrow for market.  We WILL be able to process EBT & DUFB tomorrow but without the machine so we will have to do it by phone.  Due to this you should plan accordingly to expect a longer waiting line for EBT since the phone system takes a little longer than the machine.  Also we recommend you get as much $ EBT tokens as you will need or more so that you will not have to return to the Info Booth to get more tokens since the line will be long so it gives a chance for all customers to get their EBT rather than some customers doing multiple transactions and holding up the line.  We will still be matching your EBT tokens as usual with Double Up Food Bucks (DUFB) for fresh fruits & vegetables.

Since our community is going through an actual emergency right now with this fire it is more important than ever to us to get especially the displaced families their EBT money to shop with our farmers & bakers.  Also the USDA sent us an email this week that informed us that through 6/13/22 EBT customers will be able to buy hot food to eat at market with EBT wooden tokens. See the USDA notice below:

Sorry for the EBT issues on Opening Day, it is not how we wanted to start off the season!  If you know anything about astrology you know that mercury in retrograde means ‘communication & connectivity issues’ so voila its written in the stars that we would be struggling with this and finally we have some sort of solution for tomorrow.  We expect the new machine to arrive next week so if all goes as planned by 5/28 we should be operating EBT with the machine as usual.  The EBT & DUFB program is what we put the most hours into during market and through the week since we know how much it helps the greater community and we got to look out for one another to get local food on EVERY table!

Love,
Team TFM
(Jennifer & Solomon & Sierra)

Join us back on the Plaza for our Opening Day Celebration! Many of our farmers have been hard at work and are ready to hit the ground running this season with fresh, local, naturally-grown produce and plant starts. Come get some plant starts or even fruit trees to start the garden of your dreams this year, the benefit of buying plants from local sources is that the plants are already acclimated to our environment by growing at this elevation, temperature & sunshine from seed (possibly over many years).  If we have learned anything as consumers these past few years it is that food security is paramount, no yard is too small any patch of soil given attention and care can produce food. Get to know your farmers and the land you live on, our community will be more resilient from you getting your hands in the soil!

We have a lot of new Non-Farmer Vendors this year making the commitment to Local Food First by upholding our mission. The Mission of the Taos Farmers’ Market is to support, promote and expand local agriculture by providing a premier market for local farmers to sell meat, eggs, dairy, produce, and plants. 
Our Non-Farmer Vendors are selected through a tough jury process by the TFM Board of Directors (made up of 4 Farmer Vendors & 1 Non-Farmer Vendor) each year in March.  We always receive more applications than the 18 spaces we have available for Non-Farmer Vendors so the competition is tight.  The Board selects the Non-Farmer Vendors with the most creative and LOCAL ingredients in each of their products they make since they list every ingredient on their applicaitons.  The Non-Farmers are the creatives of our market, taking what amazing ingredients our farmers work hard to grow and turning fresh local agricultural goods into ready to eat food, canned goods, baked breads, and body products.  The goal is that every product we allow our Non-Farmer Vendors to sell at market has been made with locally grown or wild-harvested ingredients from our beautiful surrounding lands.  Our Non-Farmer Vendors showcase the ingredients our farmers grow: so ask them who grew the tomatoes & herbs in their sauce or inquire as to where they sourced their wheat and you’ll quickly see how interconnected our vendors are and how beautifully intricate our local food system truly is!

We’re so happy to be back, see you at the market!
The TFM Team

Follow this link to see our May Newsletter:
https://mailchi.mp/bc51e58f1227/tfm-opening-day-may-14-market-news

To sign up to receive our Monthly Newsletter straight to your inbox sign up here (we promise no spam, only one email per month unless there is a cancellation or last minute update about timing/location/etc that we need to share)

Returning Vendors will receive a blank 2022 copy by mail this week, mailed out 3/3/22.

New Vendors can go to our Vendors page to download a 2022 application now. Find all applications at the bottom of the Vendors page.

Reminder that Non-Farmer Vendors must get their completed application back to us by 4/1/22.
Non-Farmer Vendors will be notified of the status of their application (acceptance or denial) by 4/21/22.

Mail to: PO BOX 3114 Taos, NM 87571
OR
Email to: info@taosfarmersmarket.org