Bethany's Farmers Market: Brilliant Blooms to Brighten Your Life

On Saturday mornings when most everyone else is sleeping in, Michael Calhoun of Bethany is up before the sun and picking flowers by 5:30 a.m. By 9 a.m., Calhoun is at Bethany’s Farmers Market, surrounded by containers of loose flowers and arrangements, creating a riot of color that draws customers to his booth like bees and butterflies to, well, flowers . . .

“I do this as a joyous hobby,” Calhoun said on a recent Saturday as he selected blossoms to add to a bouquet for a regular customer, “and I like to come to the farmers market. I feel like I am decorating Bethany.”

Another regular stopped by Calhoun’s booth and commented that her flowers had lasted all week before choosing her next arrangement. “Some people come every week,” he said. Yet another customer chose a bouquet, but felt it needed a, “little something more.” Calhoun added it at no charge.

Flowers are a passion for him. For years he’s grown them in his Bethany yard and filled his house and the neighborhood with bouquets from the garden. Selling mixed bouquets at the Bethany Farmers Market, he said, has been way to share flowers with many more homes.

Each week friends come by to chat for a minute and then go off with a small posy or bouquet. Calhoun sells about 50 bouquets each week.

“Every week there are also new faces and gardeners who enjoy stopping by just to remark on how well or poorly a given flower is doing for them,” he said, “or to ask if I have any ideas about what's eating their lilies. All the while I am selecting flowers from those that I picked at daybreak, arranging them into new bouquets.”

“I've always loved gardening,” Calhoun added. “Spring drives me to turn over the soil and winter drives me to order far too many seeds. Each season the gardens are magnificent and always way more than I can keep up with but that doesn't stop me from trying. Each spring I optimistically state that this year will be the best garden ever and the Cubs will win the World Series.”

Last October Calhoun left the printing industry after 40 years and began a new career in horticulture. He is currently working at Broken Arrow Nursery and is enrolled in the Horticulture Certificate program at Naugatuck Valley Community College, a two-semester program.

Stop by Bethany’s Farmers Market on Saturday morning between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the Bethany airport grounds and buy a bouquet or just talk flowers.