The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

A lthough it may not be obvious from the cool and blustery weather around here, but this week marks the beginning of summer and the start of the farmers' market season.

As we point out on our cover this week, Dayton will have two farmers' markets groups this year: the original Dayton Farmers Market and the new Saturday Market.

For a small town like Dayton, it may seem somewhat strange to have two groups with the same purpose, but at least for the moment, it may not be a bad idea to live with it as long as both groups can be fully accommodated in their mission.

It all started with a disagreement over a promotional poster and the grammatical question whether the word "farmers market" should be singular possessive, requiring an apostrophe after the "r" in "farmers;" plural possessive, requiring an apostrophe after the "s" in "farmers" or neither.

Even as longtime editors, we're a bit confused about this ourselves. It seems most references to the compound word put the apostrophe after the "s" because the phenomenon usually includes more than one farmer.

But you could argue over whether it should be possessive at all and why it couldn't just be a general designation like "wheat field" or "vegetable garden" without any apostrophe.

In any case, the debate over the poster design ruffled feathers and before we knew it there were two farmers market groups, one led by former short-term Dayton Farmers Market manager Jacci Wooten (Saturday Market), the other by Travis Richardson, chair of the Dayton Farmers Market.

Of course there was more to it than a simple spat over grammar. The parties also had philosophical differences over organizational management and, reportedly, not all the vendors got along.

To some in the community, this split may seem counterproductive. It is certainly true that there's only so much money, energy and time for the backbone of each group. Plus, the existence of two groups may be confusing to shoppers and vendors.

We also agree that in the long run, it's more desirable to have a single organization. Even larger communities don't have two groups unless their activities are in separate neighborhoods but then you're talking about pretty big cities. Walla Walla just has one downtown farmers' market.

But sometimes it's good to step aside from internal disagreements and let things cool off. Already, more vendors have been attracted to downtown Dayton by each group and that supports the kind of critical mass the Friday market at Seneca lawn didn't have.

A separation like this can release pent-up energy taken up by disagreements and personality conflicts, then redirected to higher individual productivity with two separate groups. It is clear both groups are passionate about the concept and want to make it a success.

Though vendors will have to make a choice between the Dayton Farmers Market and the Saturday Market, shoppers needn't worry about the distinction. For now, both groups have permission from the City of Dayton to set up their stalls 9 am - 2 pm on Saturday at First between Main Street and the alley behind Dingles.

The Dayton Farmers Market still plans to hold its 4 - 7 pm market at Seneca lawn on Fridays.

The sum total of the two groups' vendor recruitment effort should bring about 20 stalls to the downtown area this coming weekend with the promise of more to come.

It appears the two groups are working together to coordinate the setup and traffic revision.

We predict that once the combined Saturday morning market begins to show success, the two groups will find a way to come together again so their energies can be merged.

Once visitors and shoppers discover the expanded weekend event, the market may pick up its long-awaited momentum, generating business and opportunities for everyone.

We recommend giving the split some time to blow over and instead, for now, keep all eyes on the ball, roll up the sleeves and get to work on bringing people to Dayton for a great Saturday market.