WRLM debuted the 2010 season on Saturday
Many of them were savvy Lake Highlands shoppers, who knew that their neighbors would be offering up quality products.
The White Rock Local Market was initiated last year by the owners of The Green Spot Market & Fuels, located at Buckner and Northcliff Drive in East Dallas.
Since its debut last year, several Lake Highlands Community Gardeners have staked a claim in this upstart marketplace.
Once a month the parking lot fills with vendors and hundreds of shoppers, as the WRLM has quickly become the place to shop for locally grown produce and one-of-a-kind handmade goods by local artisans.
This year, the Market will jump from one Saturday a month of shopping to two, with the second Saturday of the month focusing solely on food items.
Heather Rinaldi, proprietor of the Texas Worm Ranch, was busy not only selling Worm Wine, rich vermicompost and the end product - freshly harvested lettuce, arugula and herbs - but was also giving tutorials to all visitors.
From the 8:00 a.m. opening until the 1:00 p.m. closing of the market, the easygoing wrangler of Red Wigglers repeated her down to earth marketing pitch.
“Included in the sale of worms and their beneficial by-products is my support, too," said Rinaldi.
Set up in the canopy next to the Texas Worm Ranch was Brandon Pollard of the Texas Honey Bee Guild.
Known as the "Zip Code Honey" folks, he and his wife Susan have an established Bee Sanctuary in the northwest corner of the Lake Highlands Community Garden.
While Brandon is optimistic that the year old plants in the sanctuary will take off this year and provide for the bees, he did report that the cold winter weather had an effect.
“This was a hard winter for the bees in the community garden. We lost two colonies."
"But they’re resilient so we’re hopeful we can produce a 75238 honey to add to our other Zip Code inventory.”
