Closing out a cold and windy January

(pic: Pink Passion Vine)

Well, we another weekend where the weather really impacted everything. This past Saturday at the St. Pete Market, we had coolish raw weather with terrific wind gusts that made for a very challenging market day. Many of our fellow vendor friends had damaged equipment and loss of stock and our hearts go out to them.

We managed to get through the market day without any equipment or stock loss, and were a bit less impacted by the wind by being on the very back East row, but we spent much of the day picking up plants and helping fellow vendor friends with tents etc. The policy at market is that on days like this, all tent tops are to removed and things secured as best can be...the safety of our customers and vendors is a priority. Thanks to all the hardy customers that came out in the weather to support us and others.

After a very trying day on Saturday, we were looking forward to heading to Tarpon Springs Market on Sunday, but as we watched the weather, temps started dropping rapidly and it was forecasted to be around freezing at Tarpon, with possible frost. We rushed around to protect our own stuff here at home and had the market plants secured in the trailer, but upon rising very early Sunday morning, yup, frost on the ground and low temps, and very cloudy. We had to make the call to not go to market, in order to protect our inventory. Wouldn't you know, 2 hours later, the sun is out shining, temps came up to low 60's and it turned into a beautiful day..unfortunately at that point, it was too late for us to head up and set up, so it turned out to be another very frustrating day where we try and make the correct call. We were especially bummed as we are very supportive of the Tarpon Springs Market and it has been struggling with customer attendance numbers down, which means also, that vendors tend to start dropping out.

After this challenging weekend,Mitch and I decided we just need to "go for it" despite the forecasts, and figure sometimes it will work and sometimes not !

We had a new inventory of all of our cold-hardy Palms....Chinese Fan Palms & European Fan Palms !

Our schedule for this coming weekend:
Saturday Morning Market, downtown St. Pete
Sunday Morning Market, Tarpon Springs

Let's hope that Mother Nature helps us out a bit more this week !