Inside the Ballston Spa Farmers’ Market 2026 Season | Buying Local #77

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;17;04
Speaker 1
Welcome, everyone, to buying Local. I’m your host, Mike Nelson from Five Towers Media. Excited about today’s episode here especially. I’ve been on a little bit of a break here for the last few weeks. I feel like I haven’t done a podcast in a while, so maybe I’m a little rusty. But I’m joined today by Steve and Steve.

00;00;17;04 – 00;00;26;17
Speaker 1
Everybody at listens knows that I always mess up last names, no matter how simple they are. So if you wouldn’t mind, just go ahead. Introduce yourself. Who you are and what you do.

00;00;26;19 – 00;00;43;14
Speaker 2
Yeah. No problem. Mike, and thanks for having me. My name is Steve Leah. I am the secretary of the Ballston Spa Business Professional Association. Or the spa for short. And I run our farmers market that’ll be starting on June 13th this year.

00;00;43;16 – 00;01;11;18
Speaker 1
Very nice, very nice. And, I’m very excited to talk about Farmer’s market, because I love farmer’s markets, and I am a bit of a hobby farmer myself, always trying to grow things, although not always that successful, but, tell it I, you know, I’ve heard about the BPA over the years. I know a little bit about what they do, but just in case our listeners do not, give us, kind of the the 30,000ft view here of the BSP.

00;01;11;20 – 00;01;48;04
Speaker 2
Yeah. Of course. So the BSP is, a nonprofit organization that is focused on, improving the downtown area of Ballston Spa and supporting all the local businesses there. We function similarly to a chamber of commerce. Basically, we’re trying to attract people to downtown to see everything that we’ve got to offer. We do that largely through events, networking opportunities and, just, getting the word out there about our village.

00;01;48;07 – 00;01;53;29
Speaker 1
Yeah. And, I mean, the village has got a ton of businesses going on, especially that downtown area.

00;01;54;01 – 00;02;08;16
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it’s it’s really, really hopping. Yeah. You know, in the past few years, we’ve just been getting more and more moving in. So it’s really a good place to go hang out, get do some shopping, get some food, get some beer.

00;02;08;18 – 00;02;17;18
Speaker 1
Yeah. Some beer. Yeah. Go over to Speckled Pig right. Yep. They got they’ve got amazing beer and pizza I should say as well.

00;02;17;20 – 00;02;24;11
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I believe they just opened up a, distillery or are in the process of opening up their distillery.

00;02;24;13 – 00;02;35;26
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don’t know. I got to reach back out to those guys. I recently got connected with them, to come on the show, actually, and talk about what they’re up to. So I at now, I definitely have to.

00;02;35;29 – 00;02;38;12
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;02;38;14 – 00;02;54;01
Speaker 1
And, I know I it’s funny because my wife and I, we really love the, there’s like a few little antique stores downtown there on the, the stretch of road, and we were just down there. Mother’s day actually bought a few things. Very nice, I love it. Yeah, yeah.

00;02;54;01 – 00;02;56;07
Speaker 2
Our whole dining room is from the antique stores.

00;02;56;13 – 00;03;18;26
Speaker 1
Is it really that awesome? They got great stuff there, like hidden little shops, man. And then the, like, direct downtown area, I just think is, is awesome. Like, you’ve got all these restaurants down there, you’ve got the what’s the place that’s got like the little courtyard area that I always want to go to but never seem to be able to.

00;03;18;28 – 00;03;36;11
Speaker 2
The little courtyard area, I know ages. RGS has a little bit of outdoor seating. There’s. Yes, a kitchen and bar has a little. Same with, Front Street Social Club. There’s a lot of them that have some outdoor seating options. Yeah.

00;03;36;13 – 00;03;55;12
Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s really cool. So. So what kind of things or what kind of activities? You know, you mentioned a little bit before as far as the BSP, what you do. But you know, I think, you know, if anybody’s is it is membership open only to people that are in Ballston Spa and businesses that are outside of the Ballston Spa join or.

00;03;55;15 – 00;04;14;22
Speaker 2
Yeah, businesses outside of Ballston Spa can certainly join. We have several that aren’t located directly in the downtown, some as far out as Hillsboro, Ballston Lake. And I was going to say Burnt Hills, Burnt Lake. But, that would be making a sense. And we definitely have some members who are up in Saratoga as well.

00;04;14;24 – 00;04;40;08
Speaker 2
We’re open, memberships open to residents as well as businesses and nonprofits. I know the residents. You got, a whole list of coupons that you can use at various businesses downtown. So that’s, that’s a nice perk for, for residences. But, yeah, we’re we’re open to everyone. And, as for events, some are if you want to participate in the event as a business, some of them are open to members only.

00;04;40;08 – 00;04;49;10
Speaker 2
Others are open to everyone. Okay. And but for just attending as a customer, of course, we’re we’re open to anybody.

00;04;49;12 – 00;04;57;08
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. And, as far as the events go, what kind of events do you typically do and what’s the frequency?

00;04;57;11 – 00;05;26;27
Speaker 2
We try to we have events regularly throughout the year. We we pick it up a little bit more in the summer than in the winter. But some of our more popular events, I’ll try to go in chronological order. In February, we do Chocolate Fest. So, many businesses in the village, they will have a chocolatier come and make little samples that you can buy for a dollar, and you go around sampling all the different chocolates, and then you vote for, who is your favorite?

00;05;26;29 – 00;05;31;13
Speaker 2
That’s, that’s a really big, big event. People love love that one.

00;05;31;15 – 00;05;32;23
Speaker 1
People love chocolate.

00;05;32;25 – 00;05;35;04
Speaker 2
Yep.

00;05;35;07 – 00;05;53;11
Speaker 2
Yeah. And then in the summer, we do the farmers market, of course. And then we also do movies in the park once a month, where it was all park. We projects movies onto the wall of a neighboring building. And that’s free. You can come bring your kids and sit out and watch a movie.

00;05;53;13 – 00;05;54;12
Speaker 1
That is fun.

00;05;54;15 – 00;06;16;11
Speaker 2
Yeah. And then we also, have concerts in the park every week, in the summer down at, Old Iron Spring Park, which is just a few blocks away from was one, and that’s very popular. We get people who come every week and, got some pretty good bands there too.

00;06;16;13 – 00;06;40;05
Speaker 2
So those are, those are the main ones during the summer. And then as we get into the fall, we have our biggest one is the way we were a car show. Not sure if we’re in the cars, but that one, we get over 400 old, fancy, well kept cars. And, just thousands of people come and look at the cars.

00;06;40;05 – 00;06;57;11
Speaker 2
It’s, we shut down basically the whole village. We we park all along the streets, front street, Bass Street, low street, all over I am that’s yeah, that’s, that’s a really big one. And then we usually wrap it up at the end of the year with a holiday parade in December.

00;06;57;13 – 00;07;04;10
Speaker 1
Very cool. I’m curious, as far as movies in the park go, what kind of movies they typically show?

00;07;04;13 – 00;07;09;14
Speaker 2
Oh, we show, usually family friendly ones, of course.

00;07;09;16 – 00;07;39;17
Speaker 2
Action one blaring right in the middle. And, I believe this year, I know in July, we’re showing national treasure, for the 250th anniversary of the America. Nice. We’re showing a goofy movie. One of the, one of the months. I don’t remember which month, unfortunately. I can. I can pull that. Oh, a Goofy Movie is in August, and then 51st Dates in September.

00;07;39;19 – 00;07;53;04
Speaker 1
Fun. Very fun. And then, and the car show sounds like a really good time. I mean, so, like, you can kind of walk around, maybe grab some lunch, look at some cars, walk around some more, maybe grab some beers.

00;07;53;06 – 00;08;09;18
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. Yeah, we have, we have a bunch of vendors come and sell food and other goods in the park and, and along the, along the path. And then all the businesses are usually open selling food. You can go to the nice lunch, look at the cars. It’s the nice. They’re very cool.

00;08;09;20 – 00;08;17;02
Speaker 1
Very cool. And it’s so and and the BSP is the one that’s putting it’s organizing all this and putting all this stuff on.

00;08;17;04 – 00;08;18;00
Speaker 2
Yes.

00;08;18;02 – 00;08;27;18
Speaker 1
Wow. That’s you know, I would have thought that maybe the town or the village or something like that would have been behind that, that kind of stuff. That’s really cool that you guys are doing that.

00;08;27;21 – 00;08;50;11
Speaker 2
Yeah, well we do, we do a lot more events than you’d think. Yeah. And those are just the big ones. We do regular networking breakfasts. We do all sorts of other things. We do, ribbon cuttings for businesses doesn’t have to be a new business. If you’re if you’ve made some renovations or something, you can just do, do a ribbon cutting.

00;08;50;14 – 00;08;54;06
Speaker 2
So all sorts of things like that sprinkled throughout the year.

00;08;54;08 – 00;09;06;28
Speaker 1
Yeah. And, I know we want to talk about the farmers market, but before we move to that. So if someone’s looking for more information on the BSP, the website, the best place for them to go.

00;09;07;00 – 00;09;26;20
Speaker 2
Yes. So our website is ballston.org. We’re also on various social medias. Our Facebook and Instagram are probably the best bets. But yeah boston.org has all that information contact email addresses, phone numbers, any any questions you might have. We love hearing from people.

00;09;26;22 – 00;09;31;10
Speaker 1
Nice. Very cool. All right. Let’s talk farmer’s market.

00;09;31;12 – 00;09;32;04
Speaker 2
All right.

00;09;32;07 – 00;09;35;00
Speaker 1
Tell me about it. What do we got going on here?

00;09;35;03 – 00;10;00;25
Speaker 2
Yeah. So the farmer’s market is going to run from June 13th. Talks tober. Third, every Saturday except for the 4th of July. A lot of people are out of town. I’m traveling 4th of July. So no market that week. Okay. And what we do is we set up in was well Park from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and the Saturdays, and we have just a wide variety of vendors and you can come browse around.

00;10;00;27 – 00;10;26;12
Speaker 2
We’ve got produce. Of course, we have bakers, of course. A lot of a lot of bakers. Nowadays that seems to be a new, new fad. We also have a wide variety of different types of foods. Especially this year, we’ve gotten some vendors reaching out for Salvadorian food, Mediterranean food, eats, all sorts of things.

00;10;26;12 – 00;10;49;13
Speaker 2
It’s, it’s going to be really good. And, we usually will have live music playing for most of the market. I don’t know if you’ve been to Israel Park recently, but last year they, they upgraded it. They, they’re, basically redid the whole park, and it looks beautiful. And the new gazebo they have is, is absolutely stunning.

00;10;49;13 – 00;10;56;11
Speaker 2
And the musicians set up in there and just play and it’s really nice. Very kid friendly. Yeah.

00;10;56;13 – 00;11;00;06
Speaker 1
Is that the park that’s right in the center of town or the one that’s like down the hill?

00;11;00;08 – 00;11;09;01
Speaker 2
Yeah. So the one right in the center of town as well as well Park all are in spring that I mentioned before for our concerts. That is the one that’s down a little bit down there.

00;11;09;01 – 00;11;25;08
Speaker 1
Okay. All right. Perfect. That’s, that’s such a great spot that hold down. I know I said it before, but I just, every time my wife and I drive through there, which is a few times a week, I’m just like, God, I love this downtown area. Like, it’s it’s adorable. I don’t know why. I don’t know how to say.

00;11;25;08 – 00;11;28;12
Speaker 1
I think that’s how I said to my wife every time, it’s adorable.

00;11;28;14 – 00;11;42;19
Speaker 2
Yeah. And everyone, all the residents are really proud of that and they like to keep it that way. It’s got kind of that small town feel, but still being big on life. There’s a lot of stuff going on and they’ve got the historic buildings. It’s it’s a really nice vibe.

00;11;42;21 – 00;12;01;04
Speaker 1
It is a really nice vibe. What as far as the farmer’s market. So I know, you know, I mean, I have to assume everyone’s been to a farmer’s market at this point, you know, but who knows? But, you know, so you’re going to have your, your, like you said, your pro, you know, your veggies and those kinds of things.

00;12;01;04 – 00;12;20;04
Speaker 1
And, what other kinds of are I mean, is it a, like a huge set up? I mean, I know I’ve been smaller, very, I don’t know, cute farmer’s markets where it’s like maybe 10 or 15. And then I’ve been to others where it’s like hundreds. So like where, where are you guys in that, that scale?

00;12;20;06 – 00;12;42;10
Speaker 2
We’re we’re definitely on the smaller side of things. I mean, we’re no Saratoga, Troy Farmer’s Market, that was go for blocks and blocks of the actual cities. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we’re not a city where, we’re a small village. We only have so much room to, but we generally average between a dozen or and 20 or so vendors.

00;12;42;13 – 00;12;57;25
Speaker 2
One of the things we’ve done this year is let vendors sign up by day that they want, instead of having to commit to a full season. So some days are going to be closer to the dozen or so. And then others are going to be sort of more in the 20s.

00;12;57;27 – 00;13;01;21
Speaker 1
Okay. The,

00;13;01;24 – 00;13;02;26
Speaker 2
Oh, God.

00;13;02;29 – 00;13;24;02
Speaker 1
Oh, no, I was just going to ask it. You know, as far as you know, there’s obviously a really good local farming community around Ballston Spa, right? I mean, there’s a ton of farms. I know I go to a few of them, a few of them on a pretty regular basis. I’m just wanted to. Are you getting a lot of those local folks that are just, you know, for a stone’s throw away or.

00;13;24;04 – 00;13;25;28
Speaker 1
Where is everybody coming from?

00;13;26;00 – 00;13;48;05
Speaker 2
Yeah, most most of our vendors are coming from local, local farms, local businesses, are some of our biggest farms are my other garden. And for master farms, they have been mainstays for decades here. Well before I started helping with the farmers market. Yeah. They are.

00;13;48;07 – 00;14;06;03
Speaker 2
They are very great. They really care about the community and have been very involved in the farmers market. And. Yeah, and that that helps show for other locals who are either just starting a business or have had one for a bit to come and be a part of what we’re doing.

00;14;06;05 – 00;14;17;21
Speaker 1
And you said that you’ve had this year, you’ve had a lot of like new different kinds of foods and different kinds of vendors. Signing up. What, what do you think is driving that.

00;14;17;23 – 00;14;49;21
Speaker 2
So one of the big things is we did the first annual Peach Fest last year. Before what we had been doing with the farmers market was just your general run of the mill farmer’s market. Our regular dates. And last year we introduced a couple more sort of big event days at the market. So last year for Peach Fest, we had the vendors for focus on sort of peach themed goods and selling peaches, and we got a lot of media attention.

00;14;49;21 – 00;15;11;14
Speaker 2
We thought it was just going to maybe get a few more people to come check us out. And we got thousands of people interested on our social media. We did a news interview, we got a lot of press coverage, and it was there were lines around the block. There were peaches. And that really helped get our name out there.

00;15;11;14 – 00;15;34;18
Speaker 2
And I know some of our vendors heard about us from that. So that’s definitely part of it. Some of it, too, is there’s there’s always people starting new businesses. And our market is sized well enough that we’re not so small. We don’t get a lot of customers. We’re not too big that you have to fight for a spot.

00;15;34;20 – 00;15;55;06
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I like to think of us as a bit more of, where you want to call it a, maybe like a developmental market for new businesses where if you’re just starting a business or you’ve been around maybe a year or so and you want to try a farmer’s market, we’re a great sort of first market for you.

00;15;55;06 – 00;16;21;15
Speaker 2
So you can go. We’re very vendor friendly. We try to work with them as much as we can. We have a good sort of regular, customer base. And so it helps people sort of get started, figure things out without having to compete with hundreds of other vendors at one of your bigger markets, or be at one of your smaller markets where you get very few customers.

00;16;21;18 – 00;16;41;02
Speaker 1
I mean, me personally, I prefer the smaller market with the fewer number of options because you go to those bigger markets and it’s just like it’s overwhelming. You don’t know if their produce is better than their produce. There’s so many options. It’s like, you know, it’s it’s cool, but it’s also like, I don’t know, it’s.

00;16;41;05 – 00;16;47;29
Speaker 2
It’s a little paralyzing. You’re like, well, that looks good. But it also looks good over there. Yeah. Like a good.

00;16;48;02 – 00;17;02;15
Speaker 1
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Who is one of the newer vendors that’s coming in this year? And I know all of them, of course, is the answer. But use one of the newer ones that are coming in that you’re, you’re personally excited about.

00;17;02;17 – 00;17;27;21
Speaker 2
So I’ve got a couple. So, so one is, Cheyenne Ben’s chicken. So they are from the area originally but lived in, Atlanta for the past several years and are moving back. And they were the first ones to reach out when we opened up registration, wanting to set up at the market. And they are going to be selling their homemade comfort food, your fried chicken and things like that.

00;17;27;21 – 00;17;33;10
Speaker 2
And it looks so good. I’m really excited for I love a good piece of fried chicken.

00;17;33;15 – 00;17;36;07
Speaker 1
Yeah me too. Who doesn’t.

00;17;36;09 – 00;17;55;29
Speaker 2
And then we’ve, we’ve also got for the first time we’ve got yoga at the farmer’s market. Oh yeah. So one of our local yoga groups, Sahaja Yoga is going to be every morning at the farmer’s market doing a class, so you can kind of do a class out in the park before it gets too hot during the day.

00;17;56;02 – 00;17;59;15
Speaker 2
Yeah. Really get it nice and loose for the day.

00;17;59;17 – 00;18;07;04
Speaker 1
Yeah. That’s fun. Yeah. So it’s becoming a lot more interactive. Yeah.

00;18;07;04 – 00;18;34;03
Speaker 2
And I found that people like going out and having something to do. Not just going and buying stuff. That’s part of what our peach fest. And we also did an autumn fest last year in October with those showed as people like more of an event than just coming to buy stuff. And so by trying to make our market a little more interactive, that gives the people what they want and helps the market grow, too.

00;18;34;06 – 00;18;39;16
Speaker 1
Yeah. I’m curious, are you doing Peach Fest again this year?

00;18;39;18 – 00;18;59;22
Speaker 2
Yes we are. We’re doing we’re doing Peach Fest on August 15th, and we’re doing Autumn Fest again on October 3rd. Okay. And we will with, with how, how excited people were for Peach Fest last year. We’re going to be spreading the word a whole lot about that in the days leading up to it.

00;18;59;24 – 00;19;02;14
Speaker 1
I’m why peaches.

00;19;02;16 – 00;19;30;15
Speaker 2
So so the the popular fruits around here tend to be blueberries, right? There’s a lot of blueberry festivals around. Apples, of course, everyone wants to go apple picking back in the fall. So we were trying to think, all right, what produce is sort of in season during our market. And peach peaches are in season in early August. So it fell in right in the middle of our season.

00;19;30;17 – 00;19;47;10
Speaker 2
And peaches are a great fruit to sort of incorporate into baked goods, snacks, desserts, all sorts of things. And our other vendors. So, so it’s like, okay, and there weren’t any other peach fests around. So it’s like, all right, we’ll try peaches.

00;19;47;12 – 00;20;04;19
Speaker 1
Yeah, I love it, man. It’s I definitely I wouldn’t have considered it. And then he said I was like, I mean, because to your point, right. Like I think about our region, I think blueberries, I think apples and, you know, everything else is just waiting for blueberry and apple season.

00;20;04;21 – 00;20;24;03
Speaker 2
Yeah, but I have to give a shout out to the yellow corner shop because the owner, Tatiana, she’s the one who came up with the idea. She’s been very involved with the farmers market and a great vendor to have. And she came up with the idea, and then we ran with it. And Haddad had a great turnout. Yeah, yeah.

00;20;24;06 – 00;20;32;23
Speaker 1
What about non-food or non farmer type stuff? Do you have vendors there that are doing other things other than just like food, veggies and then of course, you know.

00;20;32;23 – 00;20;54;22
Speaker 2
Your food vendors. Yeah, we have we have a variety of craft vendors as well. We have some candle makers, a lot of jewelry, some sold products, I guess would you call them textiles? I’m not sure what the right word is, but sold goods is what I. What I call them in my spreadsheets.

00;20;54;27 – 00;20;58;14
Speaker 1
Okay.

00;20;58;16 – 00;21;01;21
Speaker 2
Yeah. So we have, we have all sorts of different things like that.

00;21;01;27 – 00;21;09;13
Speaker 1
What about soap makers? Yeah, yeah. Any leathers? That’s one of my favorite things at farmer’s markets. I don’t know why, but I love homemade soap.

00;21;09;15 – 00;21;27;05
Speaker 2
Yeah. So we have, white Falcon soap. Bree, they come every year. They’ve been a long, long attending vendor, and I get all my soap from them, and they’re they’re usually there. Yeah, it’s very good. They bring they bring all their kids, and it’s, it’s a lot of fun.

00;21;27;08 – 00;21;35;09
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so one more time for the kids at home here. You’re kicking off. It was a June 13th.

00;21;35;11 – 00;21;36;28
Speaker 2
June 13th is the first day.

00;21;36;29 – 00;21;41;09
Speaker 1
Yep. First day out and that. I’m sorry. That’s Saturdays, right?

00;21;41;11 – 00;21;44;00
Speaker 2
Yes. Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m..

00;21;44;00 – 00;21;51;16
Speaker 1
9 a.m., 1 p.m.. All sorts of fun kicks, starting with yoga in the morning. Yeah, and then all sorts of other fun afterwards.

00;21;51;18 – 00;21;55;27
Speaker 2
Yep. Live music for sort of the rest of the market once the yoga wraps up.

00;21;56;00 – 00;22;02;15
Speaker 1
Very cool. And if people want to learn more about the farmers market, where do they find you guys?

00;22;02;18 – 00;22;27;25
Speaker 2
Our same website, Boston dawg. Okay. And our same BPP social medias. So Facebook, Instagram. We we have all of our information on there, and we put regular updates on the social media ahead of each market, let you know who’s going to be there. So in case there’s someone you’ve you fall in love with their goods, first sight, I come back for them every week.

00;22;27;25 – 00;22;28;26
Speaker 2
We’ll let you know.

00;22;28;28 – 00;22;41;28
Speaker 1
Very cool, very cool. Steve, I appreciate you taking time out your day, man. Coming on and talking to our audience about, you know, what you guys got going on. And, sounds like amazing things all around for both the SBA and the farmers market.

00;22;42;00 – 00;22;47;03
Speaker 2
Yeah. No, I really appreciate the opportunity to come and tell you about what we’re up to.

00;22;47;05 – 00;23;07;14
Speaker 1
Absolutely, absolutely. And of course, everybody, thanks for listening. You can find us at buying local.us podcasts on Spotify, Apple Rumble and YouTube. And make sure to join our subscriber list so you get all these updates the minute they hit the, the internet. And thanks for listening, everybody. Appreciate it.