New online market, CSA offering local produce in Centre County set to launch this spring

A new online market and CSA will allow Centre County residents to enjoy hyper-local, urban farm-raised produce. Sowers Market, organized by Jay Smoker and Hector Troyer, launches in May, offering weekly boxes of produce via subscription, as well as individual produce purchases via an online storefront.

The Sowers Market urban farm is located in Houserville, on only approximately an acre and a half of land, which Troyer said requires certain agriculture techniques and practices that one might not use in the average hobby garden or on a large-scale farm.

“It’s incredible how much you can produce with the right methods. The things we’re not going to raise are watermelon and sweet corn. Those are acreage-intensive crops. But when looking at something like tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, they can be crammed into a lot smaller space than in what most gardeners would traditionally grow them. It requires more attention to detail, but it can be done,” he said.

The CSA subscription will offer subscribers a weekly “Farmers Box,” which will include a variety of vegetables, including a few fruit and vegetable varieties sourced from other local farms.

“We’re going to try to include a nice variety of salad greens every week and also staples like tomatoes, cucumbers and squash,” Troyer said. “We’re trying to stay away from the really weird vegetables. That’s one of people’s number one complaints with CSAs. ... They can’t use kohlrabi three times a month. We’re sticking with more traditional vegetables and giving people super-fresh, high-quality, locally-grown (produce).”

Sowers Market is an entity of Sustainable Agricultural Solutions, a local nonprofit that aims to have international reach.

The urban farm used for growing Sowers Market’s produce will act as a training ground and example of how similar urban farms could be started by the organization’s overseas teams.

“The (overseas teams) want to help local people get a leg up and add value to what they’re producing,” Smoker said. “We really wanted to develop this concept here in the same way. We’re seeing people wanting to get back to the land, get away from big business, big farming, all that ...”

Once the market is up and running, Smoker said they’ll focus on the community development aspect.

“We’ll be using our farm here to train people how these things work on a small scale, so they can reproduce that overseas and help people there,” he said.

And while Centre Countians do have other CSAs to choose from, Smoker and Troyer feel as if there’s plenty of “room for more people on the block,” especially as they note that many of the available CSA subscriptions were completely filled last year. The two intend to only market the CSA locally as well.

“Some people doing CSAs are marketing them as far away as Harrisburg and that’s not our intention. We’re keeping it local,” Smoker says. “We’re building a loyal customer base with a personal connection in a very impersonal world, and people are looking for that.”

The first CSA box will be available May 21, with the online storefront opening shortly before. The CSA boxes will be available for both pick-up and delivery. For their first year, Smoker and Troyer hope to gain 200 CSA subscribers.

Learn more about Sowers Market at https://sowersmarket.locallinesites.com.