Every Saturday, the grassy field at Amphitheater Park in Sandy gets peppered with white tents placed by local entrepreneurs and vendors. Folding tables pop up, display stands are dusted off and set up, and free samples are laid out meticulously waiting to be eaten. 

This is a completely routine event for resident vendors at the Sandy farmers market. However, it is a new experience to both Andrea Bangerter, owner of Annie’s Blooms, and Jamie Fink, owner of KJs Garden, a business which sells homegrown succulents and plants. This is the first year that both of them have chosen to sell their products in a farmers market. 

Bangerter had lots of success selling her organic flowers to friends and family last summer, and it gave her the confidence to see if she could sell to a larger crowd. One thing Bangerter has especially enjoyed about this experience is getting to share her story with all of her customers.

“Watching my mom in the garden was my happy place,” Bangerter said, describing how she got the name Annie’s Blooms for her business. “To this day, [my mom] calls me Annie, a name that feels like home.” Bangerter couldn’t have been happier to pay tribute to her mom in this way.

Fink, after having sold only two of her plants in a span of eight months, got a suggestion from her sister to try and sell her excess succulents in a farmer’s market. 

“A bunch of [my plants] grew and I didn’t know what to do with them because they were filling up so much space,” Fink said. 

So she, like many other vendors, opted to enter a farmers market in hopes of making a profit from her extra goods. 

One thing both Fink and Bangerter have noticed since being involved with the farmers market is a sense of appreciation for all the hard work that goes into the market. 

Fink observed, “You gotta have the time to do everything for it, some of the booths next to me will cook for days at a time just for a couple hours [of sales].” 

Along with all their extra efforts, vendors also have their work cut out for them on market days. They arrive an hour before every market to set up, then they must stay for a half hour to an hour afterward to take down their tent and put their supplies and products away, putting in around six hours of work every Saturday. 

“I never realized how much work people put into it,” Fink said. 

For Bangerter, this experience has helped her make new friendships with the other vendors. “I honestly didn’t expect to be involved in the community so much. I didn’t expect to get to know the other vendors so much and how well they know each other,” she said. 

But it isn’t only the other vendors that Bangerter and Fink have forged relationships with. Both vendors have recurring customers who come back week after week to support their businesses. While Bangerter has a customer who returns to her stand and buys from her weekly, Fink has had many people return to tell her how happy their plants are in their houses and how much they love taking care of them. 

 “I feel like [Sandy City] is just really good at telling people about everything and [people] can come listen to music and bring their kids and their family,” Fink said. 

The Sandy farmers market runs Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. until Oct. 18 at Amphitheater Park, 1300 E. 9400 South.