Herbs and Folks at Port Jervis Farmers Market
Herbs of many kinds abounded at Port Jervis Farmers Market on a recent Saturday for assorted purposes. Displaying herb blends they mixed themselves were Susan and Mike Poggio, of Greenville, at their Spice Apothecary booth. They offered not just an Italian Blend but also The Hot Italian, as well as Bird’s the Word poultry seasoning and more exotic blends, like Shawarma, Middle Eastern. They have had a food blog since 2015, offering step by step international cooking, Susan said.
When she was laid off from a corporate job, she said, “It was a no-brainer. We love to cook. We’re always in the kitchen. We blend spices ourselves anyway.”
They get their herbs from a co-op and make money from affiliate links and ads, she explained.
A few yards away, Autumn Nicoli, of Westtown, tended a booth offering CBD, a chemical from marijuana that lacks the psychoactive component THC.
“It comes from the flower, not the leaves,” she said. “It’s good for anxiety, depression, trauma and sleep.”
The marijuana is grown on a black dirt farm in New Hampton, and the CBD is also sold in Emporium Square in Middletown and in a “little barn-like store” off 284 in Westtown, Nicoli said. She has been selling it at the Port Jervis Farmers Market for two weekends, as the farmer, who has been growing it for four years, is a friend of her family. She also works with BOCES special needs students.
How do people know about this CBD?
“Facebook, Instagram. The young and old buy it for sleep. You get mellow and calm, not high from it,” said Nicoli. “You can smoke it.”
She also displayed soap and bath balms.
“They fizz in the water, calming and relaxing,” she said of the latter.
A woman stopped by the booth and said that her daughter, living in Texas, orders CBD for her pain.
“She swears by it,” said the woman, introducing herself as Helene Ward, of Middletown, 89. “The guy at Agway swears by it.”
However, she said she’d had multiple myeloma, which deteriorates the bones, for 13 years and finds that CBD doesn’t help her, but beet powder does.