Photo Provided Wheeling Farmers’ Market Coordinator Eric Blend, left, is excited for the first local farmers’ market for the spring season this Saturday.

WHEELING — As temperatures rise in Friendly City, local growers are ready to showcase their goods at the first Wheeling Farmers’ Market of the spring season this Saturday.

The St. Patrick’s Day Pop-Up Market will be held at the St. Michael Parish Church parking lot on National Road from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The six local growers at Saturday’s market will fill their stalls with homemade goods, including sourdough bread, eggs, cookies, muffins, kettle corn, apple butter, pretzels, bagels and pies.

With the market having a St. Patrick’s Day theme, Wheeling Farmers’ Market Coordinator Eric Blend said visitors can expect plenty of themed baked goods, such as decorative cookies.

Blend, who co-owns the farm The Blended Homestead, said Saturday’s market would also provide customers with the opportunity to enjoy fresh goods at prices that may be lower than what they see in the grocery store. He noted that the recent egg shortage caused by the bird flu outbreak this year did not impact the egg prices of sellers at the farmers’ market.

“All of the vendors who sell eggs at the farmers’ market are all local and supporting them can create more of a sustainable and consistent price for customers, while also having a much higher quality product,” Blend said.

Blend noted that the Wheeling Farmers’ Market has been providing residents with fresh, local goods for more than 70 years, since the market was first registered as a business in West Virginia in 1955. He added that the market “probably” operated long before its business registration date.

“Before we had grocery stores, markets were a place for people to come together to help other local Ohio Valleyans out with their products,” Blend said. “We’re excited to have an unofficial 70-plus birthday this year.”

With 25 growers on the Wheeling Farmers’ Market’s roster this year, Blend said they were still looking to expand the number of producers who sell at the market. He noted that with a steady base of growers, they would also be able to establish a steady customer base and turn the market into a year-round affair.

“We want growers to know they will have customers at these markets earlier in the year so they can plan to have product ready earlier,” Blend said. “We won’t have a lot of produce this time [at Saturday’s market] but with continued support it’ll make it worth it for these vendors to be selling their goods earlier on in the year. I want to turn this market into a year-round market, so growers do not have their businesses off the bat for half of the year.”

Following Saturday’s market, the next pop-up Spring market will be held on April 19 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at St. Michael’s parking lot. Weekly summer farmers’ markets will begin the first week of June through October and occur every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Blend said he hopes to see the number of vendors and customers grow at each market, noting that both increased during last year’s market season.

Blend encourages vendors to apply for the market by contacting them for an application through their Facebook page, Wheeling Farmers’ Market. He added that they were always in need of more produce vendors and would love any local growers, from residents with a small garden to farmers with a couple of acres of crops, to provide those products to farmers’ market customers.

“We’re really excited to become known to more people and let them know that we offer an opportunity for them to support local producers and entrepreneurs,” Blend said. “We have vendors of all ages and varieties, and we want to provide them plenty of opportunities to thrive.”