Home Grown: Bringing ag and art to the community

The weather is finally getting cooler and making it easier to go out and enjoy Yuma.

For this week’s Home Grown, we talked to Visit Yuma about an event that focuses on local agriculture and art.

The crowd was buzzing at Tractor Supply Co. out in the Foothills Sunday morning.

Members of the community came to enjoy the first of several Ag to Art farmers market events.

Linda Morgan, Executive Director of Visit Yuma said she was pleased about the turnout.

“We are thrilled with the turnout lots of people coming out,” said Morgan.

Thanks to Keithly Williams Seed, families also enjoyed a hands-on activity.

“You can actually pot a plant and take it home and grow it. We have celery, cauliflower, and kale,” said Morgan.

According to Morgan, there were about 30 vendors in attendance to showcase their products.

“We don’t want to grow it for the sake of growing, we want it to be something that is unique and very ‘Yumaesque’,” said Morgan.

According to Visit Yuma, each booth on-site must either be selling locally sourced agriculture products or handmade art pieces.

From olive oil to handmade jewelry, the Ag to Art event has Yuma farmers and artists in mind.

Artists like Olga Rodriguez, owner of Sundust Minerals, collects the materials for her art in ghost towns around Arizona.

“I guess my childhood inspired me to start this business. My dad would take us to Picacho, into the mountains in the foothills, and would give us pans, so we could look for gold. We never found any, but we always hiked and always like to look for minerals,” said Rodriguez.

This is Rodriguez’s first show, and she says she appreciates the event is free for her small business.

Even her step-son Dominic Dorame was an expert in some minerals used.

“The desert rose is a small mineral, and they are made by mother nature. So in the middle of it, there is salt and sand. If you look closely, you can still see some sand stuck inside of it. It’s made by water that evaporates and then the salt goes inside of it,” said Dorme.

Among the sights and sounds of the event, the smell of fresh flowers drew me to Danielle Akins’ booth.

“I am from Yuma homegrown, born and raised,” said Akins.

As the owner of Herb and Floral, Danielle says she has been arranging flowers for 20 years.

“I took a horticulture class, 4H and FFA, and my niche in life is floral design, and that’s what I want to do and show everybody what can be done,” said Akins.

Akins is a great example of vendors that fulfill both the ag and art aspect of the event.

I then stumbled upon a local shop that specializes in the jewels of Yuma, dates!

Sarah Kingery, the owner of Brocket Farms on Main street, gets her dates from a local farm in Somerton.

“We do stuffed dates and gift baskets. Then we also offer a date sugar and other dates for cooking, date syrup for sweetening teas and things like that. Then we also have loose-leaf teas, caramel apples for the fall, and caramel corn, and we have all the different chocolates we make, and we are starting to offer date shakes this winter,” said Kingery.

If you know someone who likes dates, Kingery offers unique ways to enjoy them just in time for the holidays.

“We are going to have a lot of different holiday gifts this season, and all sorts of specialty date trays and baskets, and we can custom make, come down and check us out,” said Kingery.

For more on Herb and Floral, click here.

To learn more about Sundust Minerals, click here.

For more on Brocket Farms, click here.

The Ag to Art farmer’s markets will be happening the first of every month from now until April at different locations.

Visit Yuma is also still accepting vendor applications which can be found here.

For a list of dates and locations, click here.