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Farmers Market FAQ

Stop by the Urban Harvest Greeter’s Booth to learn more about the market and our organization. Below are some resources we put together for first-time market shoppers or for those who just want to learn more.

Urban Harvest’s Majority Local Standard

Urban Harvest’s Farm Categories

Are you really open year-round, rain or shine?

We’ve been open every Saturday, rain or shine, 52 weeks a year from 8am-12pm for the past 20+ years! We’ve been closed for Hurricane Ike and Christmas. Our farmers don’t stop growing, so we won’t stop being open for you and them.

Due to the volume of interest we receive, we have all vendors fill out a prospective vendor inquiry on our website. We check submissions almost daily and will reach out to you if we are interested. If you don’t hear back, chances are we might already have that type of vendor category filled, or we are out of space at the moment.
Vendors are invoiced monthly. The monthly fees range from $184 for farms and $239 per tent for value added vendors.
No, our mission is to support local agriculture and therefore we work exclusively with farmers and food vendors within a 180-mile radius of Houston.
We love baked goods, but we have a long waitlist for them. We currently do not work with people baking from their home kitchens as a way to shorten to list. We encourage cottage food vendors to get their start at another market and reach out to us when they have a certified kitchen.
Absolutely not! We are a direct producers market that only works with producers directly growing and making their products and have a strict no-reselling policy that will result in immediate termination of participation. We also do not allow co-packaged products.
The markets main focus is to support local agriculture. While 75% of our vendors produce their products in a sustainable manner without pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, many are not certified organic because they are small farms without the resources to get officially certified. Each farm vendor has a “growing practices” sheet clipped to their booth that defines how they are categorized. We have a mix of conventional, sustainable, certified naturally grown and certified organic vendors.
No, in Texas raw milk can only be sold at the farm where it was produced provided they have a raw dairy license. There is legislation in the works to allow raw milk to be sold at farmers markets.

Unfortunately, no. We love pets, but no pets except service animals are allowed within the market per the City of Houston Health Department Code. 

We now accept SNAP benefits. We believe locally grown food should be available to all people.
Over 90% of our vendors take cards, but cash is still the preferred form of payment for most vendors.

Please send all inquiries about sponsoring the market to Jorge Sanchez, Development Director, jorge@urbanharvest.org. We have a sponsorship packet and enjoy working with outside sponsors that are mission aligned with Urban Harvest. We have 1500-2000 people coming to our market every week.

Please visit www.helpmegig.com for the full schedule of artists that play our market 52 weeks a year. TC Smythe is our fearless booking agent. You can also apply online through that website.
The best way is to sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. We publish a monthly email and post about vendors all the time to our social media pages.
We have a featured nonprofit outreach booth every week. We do not work with political or religious organizations. We do not allow fundraising or sales of any type to be conducted at the market. If you are interested in getting on our non profit outreach rotation, please email info@urbanharvest.org

Come and shop with our vendors every week! Another way is through a tax-deductible donation. Urban Harvest is a 501(c)(3) organization that does a lot more than just farmers markets! You can find more about our mission and other programs here.