provided by OPENAIR-MARKET NET
Richard's parents, Yervant and Askanoosh Erganian, arrived in Fresno on November 1, 1920 from their home in Bitlis, Armenia. They went into business with a partner who operated a small neighborhood grocery store near the old Emerson School, west of the Santa Fe railroad tracks. The couple worked long hours learning the grocery business and going to school to learn English.
In time they saved enough money to buy a piece of property, which included a larger grocery store and several houses, in the 600 block of O Street. The Erganians settled in one of the houses and rented out the others. Their O.K. Market outlasted all the other stores established in the area over the years, expanding three times before succumbing to redevelopment in 1983.
After construction of the Fresno Convention Center and Highway 41, the remaining neighborhood was razed and the land given free of charge for Pacific Gas and Electric offices. Richard then moved the family home from 644 O Street seven miles north to a ten-acre site on the northwest corner of Blackstone and Shaw Avenues. The Vineyard Farmers Market now occupies the center quarter-acre of the property.
The grocery stores of those early years bore little resemblance to today's supermarkets. In the days before home refrigerators, stores opened early and closed late to meet the needs of families that counted on them for milk and other staples. For the Erganian children--sons Aram, Richard, and Miche and daughter Aznive--the O.K. Market was an extension of their home. The family worked in the store virtually around the clock, bottling wine and olives, making shortening and Armenian specialty foods, and stocking the store with produce bought several times a week from local growers who gathered at 4 a.m. at a wholesale market on G Street next to the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. They even made deliveries of food and kerosene to customers who lived several miles from the store.
Armenians hungry for a taste of home could satisfy their longings with the Erganians' Basturma and Soujouk (meat snacks), Roejig (a sugary walnut treat; see recipe section), and imported items such as figs and pistachios. It's difficult to imagine now, but California did not begin marketing its own dried fruits until the 1940s--and pistachios were not grown here commercially until 1976.
Richard remembers how much he loved the downtown Fresno farmers market when he was growing up--the color and excitement of the crowds of people buying and selling everything from garden-fresh carrots to live chickens in the area around Courthouse Park. "It was a worthwhile experience for children and parents alike, a real community gathering place," he said. Those early experiences, coupled with an introduction to European farmers markets on visits to relatives in Paris and an interest in architecture and landscaping, played an important part in his decision to establish a market in Fresno.
Turning the Idea into Reality
"I had an awakening when I discovered there were very few family farmers around Fresno set up for direct marketing. Most farmers who don't grow cotton grow grapes, which travel by ton truckloads to wineries and produce houses all over the world. Next comes tree fruit that is moved by trucks all over the world. Very few farmers are set up to sell at a local farmers market. So it took a lot of looking, a lot of persuasion, a lot of compromise. The first year I didn't even charge, of course. I sensed that growers were suspicious of me. As I approached growers, they were thinking: `Why is this guy starting a farmers market at Blackstone and Shaw? What is he up to?' There was an eerie sense of distrust. I had already figured out my arithmetic and I knew that I wasn't going to make money at this thing, so I told them: `Try it free for the first year. If you like it, come back.' My remuneration for the first year was an occasional watermelon or a bag of peaches."
The Vineyard Farmers Market's first season was a learning experience. Richard started with a Saturday market, but he invited growers to bring their produce out to Blackstone and Shaw seven days a week. A mailing recruiting area farmers to participate in the market's second season stated: "We are open seven days a week from 12 noon to 4 p.m. Choose one or more days to fit your schedule and bring your produce to Fresno for quick cash sale." Noting that 25,000 cars pass the market location every day, the mailing pointed out that at the market growers could eliminate middlemen, set their own prices, and get some immediate cash.
Saturday was by far the busiest day at the market. In a column published in the July 13, 1980 Fresno Bee, Woody Laughnan described a Saturday at the market, where one could find "just about every summer crop that is grown in the valley." The market was apparently a lively place the day Laughnan visited, complete with street musicians. Growers were selling their produce from the backs of pickup trucks, campers, vans, and travel trailers. At a time when they could make only a limited profit selling to packing houses, many small growers looked to the farmers market as an opportunity to make some much-needed cash. A woman selling farm-fresh eggs explained: "Egg prices are down and we have to make some extra money any way that we can."
The Vineyard Farmers Market's first season ended in October, as the summer fruits and vegetables ran out. On the first Saturday of October, before the market closed for the season, a Fall Harvest Festival celebrated the Valley's bounty. A highlight of the event, which was repeated the following year, was children carrying bunches of purple balloons intended to resemble grape clusters. "My fingers were blistered from tying all those balloons," Richard recalls.
The growers were back at the Vineyard Shopping Center parking lot ready for another year the first Saturday of May 1981. An article in the May 3 Fresno Bee noted the opening of the market, which the Bee said would run on Thursdays from 4 to 8 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon. Twenty or more growers came out that first Saturday, and as many as fifty were expected to participate during the season.
In contrast to the market's opening day a year earlier, a grower could sell $100 worth of produce if he or she had sufficient variety. Many Central Valley growers were not interested in a Fresno market, however. They could drive to farmers markets in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas, sell a larger volume of produce, and charge higher prices for the same produce than they could get in Fresno. This is still true today.
The Market Matures
The produce as well as the growers suffered. The growers had been up since 4 a.m. and put in a full day by noon. When the market closed they would have at least another hour's work returning to the ranch, unloading, and so forth. Many of them still had irrigation and afternoon chores. Customers weren't inclined to linger and chat with growers and friends as they do now. They tended to "hit and run" to get out of the 105-degree heat that felt like 125 degrees. Even though growers rigged up all kinds of shades and umbrellas to keep off the sun, nothing could really dissipate the heat of a Fresno July afternoon.
Like everything about the Vineyard Farmers Market, the idea of putting up an arbor to make the shopping experience more comfortable for growers and shoppers alike was part of an evolutionary process. Richard credits local artist Alyce Stukenbroeker, a faithful market shopper and friend who died in 1994, with giving him the idea of an arbor.
"We spent hours discussing philosophy and exchanging books on health, gardening, and nutrition. One day we were looking at photos of an English garden with wisteria growing over an arched structure," Richard remembers. "Alyce sketched a larger scale version with a pencil. We essentially took that drawing and superimposed it on a set of parking bays."
Richard knew he couldn't charge stall fees high enough to finance a large building. "Even if we could have put up a building, we'd have had to use air conditioning--and the growers couldn't pay for that," he explained. "That was my first step into sustainable architectural design. I had already had experience with grapevines in the landscaping of the Vineyard Shopping Center. I thought what would make an ideal shade structure was taking the idea of that English structure and substituting grapevines."
Grapevines were the ideal choice for two reasons. First, grapes are one of Valley's primary crops. Second, and more important for the arbor, grapevines provide excellent shade. The buds start coming out in mid-March, just as the temperature starts to climb and shade is needed. The leaves get larger as the weather gets warmer, and by June the vines completely shade the area. The leaves begin to drop in the fall, opening up the arbor to let warming sunlight through during cold winter days.
Getting from concept to arbor took some time. A local architect designed a shade structure that was basically a carport covered by a trellis, but somehow it didn't click. That meant another hot summer on the asphalt, but more and more Valley residents were learning about the market and business was good.
As increasing numbers of growers brought their produce to the market, Richard learned something important. "In May or June when new growers asked if I had a space, I would just open up one more parking stall," he said. "I think at one point I had fifty growers out there. I started to look at the situation in the middle of July, and I realized that half of the growers were selling the same thing--peaches, plums, and nectarines. I realized it didn't make sense for either the customers or the growers. If there were twice as many sellers as we needed, each was doing half the volume." From that point on, he concentrated on encouraging growers who were offering something new or different.
The Arbor Emerges
Alexander and his structural engineer, Gary Black, interpreted Alyce's sketches and Richard's wishes and labeled them "Les Halles," after the Paris farmers market complex established in 1854 and demolished for redevelopment in 1971. "What Les Halles was to Paris, I hoped the Vineyard Farmers Market--which I call Petite Les Halles--would become to Fresno," Richard said.
Over a period of six months Alexander, Black, and three graduate students developed the design and engineering for the arbor. The following year, they fabricated the redwood elements of the structure in a warehouse in Berkeley. Two graduate students built the concrete block columns on the Vineyard site, and then the project sat idle for a couple of months while redwood beams were being constructed.
"I remember a lot of comments, because we were still having the farmers market in the parking lot," said Richard. "People thought I was building a truck wash. They saw a symmetrical arrangement of columns, wide enough for a truck to drive through, on a commercial corner. So for the first six months everyone in town was guessing what it was going to be. When the arches went up, they really began to wonder."
Richard didn't have the funds to finish the slab and put in landscape irrigation that year, but in the fall dormant season he moved some of the grapevines that had been planted in the original shopping center landscaping in the early 1970s. He selectively thinned the vines along Shaw Avenue, moved the vines to the arbor and planted them next to the columns, and hand watered them until he was able to put in an irrigation system. He wanted color in addition to shade, so he planted climbing roses around the arbor frame.
The following summer the slab was laid, and on July 19, 1984, the market moved under the arbor. It would be three years before the grapevines provided sufficient shade, but it was a good beginning. "I talked my mother into putting her hand prints in the concrete along with the date," Richard said. "She wouldn't put her footprint in; she said it would bring bad luck." Askanoosh Erganian lived to see the grapevines grow to cover the arbor and the Vineyard Farmers Market flourish for ten years under their welcome shade; she died in February 1995 at the age of ninety-four, seventy-four years after arriving in Fresno as a young bride.
The colorful fruit and vegetable mosaics that adorn the four columns framing the arbor entrance were designed and assembled by Chicago mosaicist Cynthia Weiss. Richard contracted with her in the late 1980s to develop a series of decorative mosaics representing the Valley's abundant produce. Describing her designs, Weiss said: "I wanted the beauty of California to be reflected in the mosaics."
At the time the market moved from the parking lot to the arbor, it had evolved to a Saturday market, open from 6 a.m. to noon. Not long after the move, grower Annie Paloutzian suggested adding a Wednesday market. Many growers had such an abundance of produce that they wanted a chance to sell it before it spoiled. The Wednesday afternoon market was added, but it took about three years for shoppers to get in the habit of shopping on Wednesdays in addition to, or instead of, Saturdays. Because of the demands of farming, some growers simply don't have the time to bring their produce to market twice a week.
Fortunately for shoppers hungry for fresh fruits and vegetables, a good number of growers can be counted on to show up Wednesdays and Saturdays year-round. "It's always been a chicken-egg situation: Which comes first, the growers or the customers?" Richard explained. "The growers are waiting for the customers to come first, but the ideal thing is for the growers to make a commitment for an entire season so that customers will know there will be a consistent number of growers there each market day. That gives them more reason to come to the market."
The arbor structure provides parking stalls for twenty-four growers, but the shopper is likely to find more or less than that number on a given day. Late spring and summer are the busiest times; the market is packed with growers selling the freshest fruits and vegetables available. The first cherries, peaches, and nectarines of the season arrived at the market the second week of May in 1995, and berries were not far behind. Fall is also a busy time, as growers appear with tempting varieties of apples, persimmons, nuts, and the first of the citrus crop--along with the last of the late table grapes and the first raisins of the season. As fall moves into winter, some growers take their leave, but a good number remain to supply shoppers with nutritious winter vegetables--broccoli, spinach, chard, cabbage, beets, turnips, all varieties of lettuce and other salad greens--as well as sprouts, whole-grain bread, nuts, dried fruits, avocados, apples, citrus fruits, eggs, tamales, and drought-tolerant plants.
What is a Certified Farmers Market?
Growers at certified farmers markets such as the Vineyard must have valid certificates issued annually, for a fee, by the county agriculture commissioner of the county where their produce is grown. Certificates list every crop, and the acreage devoted to it, that a grower is actually growing and thus authorized to sell at certified farmers markets.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture began certifying farmers markets in 1977; by November of 1978 there were twenty-five certified markets across the state. According to an article in the February 1979 issue of California Agriculture, ten of these were roadside stands next to fields. Fifteen were public markets, of which three--Davis, San Diego, and San Francisco--were open year-round. By July 1995, there were about 260 certified farmers markets operating across the state, with more springing up each year.
As the only certified farmers market in Fresno, and one of only five in the county, the Vineyard differs from other public markets, city corner produce outlets, and rural roadside stands--except those operated by certified growers--in one crucial respect. The produce sold at the Vineyard, and at other certified markets, has been grown by the person selling it, or by that person's relative or employer. That's why you won't find bananas at the Vineyard Farmers Market. Bananas are a recent addition to California agriculture; they are being grown commercially only at the Seaside Banana Garden, an eleven-acre ranch near La Conchita in Ventura County that has six thousand producing banana plants. If you visit one of the Ventura-area farmers markets, you may find grower Doug Richardson selling his several varieties of bananas--but he probably won't get as far as Fresno. (See the appendix for a listing of all California certified markets.)
What does it matter whether or not a farmers market is certified? It depends on your perspective. If getting the lowest possible price for produce is the shopper's primary goal, whether or not the market is certified will make no difference. Many non-certified markets, such as the Arnett-Smith Market run by Florence Arnett Smith and her husband since 1945 at N and Merced Streets in downtown Fresno, offer reliably low produce prices. Florence and her family grow a great deal of the produce offered at that market, and many if not most of the other sellers at that and other open or free markets are the actual growers--but they don't have to be. That means entrepreneurs are free to scour the countryside for produce bargains to pass on to their customers--still making money in the process. They can pick up overripe bananas from produce wholesalers, surplus tomatoes from local growers, apples that have been in cold storage in other states--whatever might sell. There's not a thing wrong with this, but consumers should be aware of what they are buying.
As difficult as it is to believe, many roadside stands sell produce purchased from wholesalers. That means the customer is getting the same things he or she could purchase in the supermarket. A good way to check whether or not the stand operator is selling home-grown produce, at least in California, is to ask to see a certificate.
Shopping at a certified farmers market is a small but important step in living a life of integrity. By purchasing fruits and vegetables grown in the bioregion, shoppers are supporting growers and enabling them to continue farming and providing for their families and workers. Aside from getting the freshest and most nutritious produce available, often just hours from the tree or field, the customer is participating in a rational and equitable distribution system in which the people who grow the food profit from its sale.
Eating with the Seasons in Your Bioregion
The certified farmers market is dedicated to the principle of eating with the seasons in the particular bioregion in which the market is located. It makes good sense, when you stop to think about it. Unless you live in the Southern Hemisphere, you won't find grapes at a certified farmers market in February. At the Vineyard Farmers Market, you'll be able to buy one or more varieties of grapes beginning in July and lasting well into December most years. In February, you can satisfy your hunger for fruit with oranges, tangerines, grapefruit, pummelo, and apples, as well as a tempting variety of raisins and other dried fruits. Fortunately for Vineyard Farmers Market shoppers, locally grown greenhouse tomatoes are now available nearly year-round at the market.
Even though he grew up surrounded by produce, Richard says he had never paid close attention to which crops grew where in a particular season. "Certain things were an awakening for me. For instance, in the grocery store we stocked broccoli all year round. I started asking my growers here why there wasn't any broccoli in the market in July. I didn't have my own garden at that time, so I didn't know that broccoli doesn't make it in Fresno in July. All the years in the store when we got broccoli it was an invisible line between when it was local broccoli and when it was coast broccoli. That was an important lesson to me, and the kind of lesson we wanted to get out in the farmers market: living within the seasons of our geography. In other words: Eat foods where they are grown, as they are grown."
Richard generally doesn't encourage growers coming from outside the Central Valley bioregion to sell at the market for two basic reasons: (1) It defeats one of the purposes of having a farmers market: to serve growers from the surrounding community, not 150 miles away, and (2) If a grower is driving two and a-half hours to get to the Vineyard Farmers Market and happens to have a few bad days in a row, he will probably drop out of market. That creates a void and confuses customers who were looking forward to the produce that grower was bringing to the market.
Making a commitment to eat with the seasons where one lives can mean a few menu changes. Instead of tomatoes in that winter salad, we can substitute slices of orange or kiwi--both high in vitamins and locally harvested in the winter months. You won't find iceberg lettuce at the Vineyard Farmers Market in any season, which is actually a very good thing because eating iceberg lettuce is only slightly more nutritious than drinking a glass of water. In place of pallid iceberg, growers offer a palette of brilliant greens loaded with distinctive flavors and vitamins--making salad something more than a vehicle for dressings.
The winter market features abundant Oriental greens for stir frying in creative combinations, as well as hearty root vegetables to be savored greens and all. You won't find as many of these at the market during the summer, but that's when it's so hot you don't want to eat much cooked food anyway--with the possible exception of the succulent sweet corn that tastes like an entirely different vegetable from what one buys in the supermarket. A meal of sweet corn and vine-ripened tomatoes and cucumbers, topped off with melon or peaches, can just about make summer worth waiting for.
Nurturing a Year-Round Market
Finding and nurturing growers who can make a year-round commitment, are farming organically, or can bring something different or unusual to the market, is a continuing challenge. "To me, charging rent is secondary to getting a good grower established," Richard explained. "When I find growers that meet these criteria, I'll invite them to try the market free for a couple of weeks to decide if it will work for them.
"I've been working with the growers to develop a sustainable market with produce all year round. It's been a process of trial and error. The grower's attitude and personality, liking to relate to customers, is very important. It's hard to get growers who are 100 percent organic, but they're mostly in transition. My definition of transitional is that they're trying to eliminate chemicals as much as possible. From my observation, the winter market is essentially an organic market because there aren't many pests in the winter.
"My heart is with the organic growers. I'll bend over backwards to help them. Fresno, up to now, is not an organic town." Even though the Vineyard Farmers Market is not fully organic, it certainly beats taking potluck at the supermarket. Shoppers can ask the growers what chemicals they used and when, and what chances there are of having any residue on the produce.
Growers range from home gardeners to farmers with hundreds of acres. Home gardeners are more likely to use organic practices, but giving them space at the market is problematic. They can grow only a limited number of varieties, in relatively small quantities--and mainly in June and July when the market is crowded anyway. "If I let the home gardeners bring in their tomatoes, it puts me in the position of compromising the growers who support the market all year long, even in the winter when sales aren't always that good," Richard explains. He selectively adds home gardeners who are able to provide adequate supplies of something new or unusual not being sold by long-time regular growers, but certified producer certificates have gotten expensive--going from $10 a year when the market opened to $75 a year currently in Fresno County. This extra expense makes it prohibitive for most home gardeners to consider selling at certified farmers markets.
Plans for the Future
World-renowned journalist Roger Tatarian, whose family also came to the San Joaquin Valley from the Bitlis region of Armenia, called the Vineyard Farmers Market the "centerpiece of an evolving dream" in a November 11, 1990 Fresno Bee column. He described the market as a place where people visit with friends while shopping for locally grown produce. "It may be the only farmers market in the world where you can shop to background music by Mozart and Vivaldi," he wrote. "This happy blend of social and economic exchange gives the market the feel and flavor of an old-fashioned town square--and that is precisely what Richard Erganian has in mind. Over time, he wants it to become something like the Italian piazza where people work, live, shop, dine or stroll, all within the radius of a few blocks." Sadly, Roger Tatarian did not live to see and write about the realization of Richard's vision; he died on June 26, 1995.
"You can't build a structure like the arbor and expect to make money off it as a farmers market," Richard explains. "If you can get multiple uses, you can begin to amortize the cost." He has been working with visionary Welsh architect Christopher Day to shape the future of the property. Richard plans to construct other buildings in a half-circle in the area surrounding the market. These structures will have balconies, with steps or ramps leading up to the second and third levels. The upper decks and balconies of hotel rooms will face an open amphitheater--in essence giving a theater of five hundred seats, combining all seating possibilities. Richard got this idea from a Shakespeare festival he saw in Dubrovnik, in the former Yugoslavia, on a Fresno State tour twenty years ago. "In this small medieval town, they had maybe six plays going on at one time in all parts of town in this kind of makeshift stage configuration."
"The minute you go indoors you have to air condition, which means overwhelming overhead, and the building stands idle much of the time," Richard explains. "It's best to use spaces that are naturally idle at certain periods, like the market after 1 p.m. on Saturday. It would be ideal to have play in there Saturday evening. I hope somebody will write a play especially for us--perhaps 'The Phantom of the Arbor.' We already have the perfect stage set."
Immediate plans call for a straw bale rest center, designed by Day and planned by local architect James Oakes and structural engineer Rick Ransom, to be constructed at the southeast end of the market beginning in the fall of 1995. Because straw bale construction is relatively new in California, it's taken two years to navigate the permitting process. The earliest known straw bale structures, some of which are still in use, were built in the Sand Hills of Nebraska in the late 1800s; the rest center will probably be the first permitted straw bale structure in the San Joaquin Valley.
Bales for the rest center will be made of wheat and rice straw from the Central Valley. The straw bales are laid like bricks, speared on reinforced steel bars (rebar) that have been fixed in concrete footing around the building perimeter. New bars or continuous thread rods are added as the structure gets higher. Once the twenty-four-inch-thick bale walls have been constructed, a process that takes only one day, the bales are covered with two and a-half inches of concrete. The structural value actually comes from the concrete, unlike Nebraska-style straw bale construction where the weight of the roof is borne by the bales themselves.
The rest center will have 700 square feet of usable space inside its thick walls, which will provide an insulation value of about R-55. It will be cooled by wind blowing over wet pads in the 22-foot high cooling tower. A rest room in the south corner will be accessible from both inside and outside. The structure has been designed so that rain water falling on it will be collected for use on surrounding landscaping. The rest center promises to embody Christopher Day's philosophy of architecture, set forth in his book Places of the Soul: Architecture and Environmental Design as a Healing Art:
Architecture has responsibilities to minimize pollution and ecological damage, responsibilities to minimize adverse biological effects on occupants, responsibilities to be sensitive to and act harmoniously in the surroundings, responsibilities to the human individualities who will come in contact with the building, responsibilities not only in the visual aesthetic sphere and through the outer senses but also to the intangible but perceptible `spirit of place.'
The spirit of the Vineyard Farmers Market is clearly perceptible to the hundreds of Valley residents who find nourishment for body and soul there week after week. You will find their comments about the market and its significance to the community in a later chapter. Now, let's meet the growers.