Clintonville market boasts the best in home-grown goods

"We're pretty thrilled about honey bees," said Benedict, the owner of Honey Health Farms. Although he first started selling honey simply for its taste, he now promotes his bee products for their health benefits.

Benedict often sells his honey products, including moisturizing cream and soap, at farmers' markets such as the Winter Farmers' Market at the First Unitarian Universalist Church on West Weisheimer Road in Clintonville.

The Winter Farmers' Market started last fall when Cathy Rollison-Krist and her husband Mark wanted to sell at a winter market in Worthington, but it was full. They weighed the idea of starting their own market.

"Then someone made the comment that we couldn't do it," Rollingson-Krist said. "And don't ever tell me no."

Wayne Shingler, who owns Frijolito Farm and sells free-range, antibiotic chicken products, helped come up with the idea for the market with Rollison-Krist.

"We just threw it together in October and promoted it at the end of the Clintonville Farmers' Market," Shingler said.

There are about 11 vendors who participate in the bimonthly winter market, and the organizers are looking for more.

"We look for vendors that have home-made, hand-made, home-grown products, and we try to look for the top-notch ones and get them into our market," Rollingson-Krist said.

Vendors sell goat's milk and cheeses, grass-fed and range-fed beef, artisan breads and free-range chicken products, among other goods.

The Winter Farmers' Market runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and has three more days planned this year: March 21, April 4 and April 18. Rollingson-Krist is in negotiations with the church to have the market again next year.

"Our goal is to continue it and grow it even bigger and have a whole lot more vendors in the future," Rollingson-Krist said.