The Pink Petal and B Sweets: Waynesboro Farmer's Market vendor profiles
By The Daily Boro Staff
For shoppers visiting a farmer’s market, locally grown products with superior quality but affordable prices are always the most popular. Entering Waynesboro’s weekly Saturday morning Market in the Park, the first vendor facing Main Street is Pink Petal. This cheerful flower vendor is a prime example of why the best natural products are often grown by neighbors.
Amber Lyn Beckner is Pink Petal’s gardener and proprietor. She grows an abundance of floral varieties at her Zullinger home. While admiring the abundance of lovely arrangements at her vendor stand, one might assume that Beckner works on a large scale with many acres of land. However, she creates her flowers on only ¾ of an acre. “I like growing things, and I use the space that I have.”
Beckner constantly refreshes her garden throughout the growing season, using succession planting. She grows mostly native flowers. “July is the time when everything is blooming.” Asked how her flowers held up during recent heat waves, Amber Lyn said that “these flowers like the heat, as long as you keep them watered.” One mainstay is zinnias, which Beckner says are the perfect flower for her business. “The more you cut them, the more they bloom.” After she harvests zinnias for Saturday’s market, she returns the following week to find a new crop of florets.
Amber Lyn is a self-taught gardener and gained practical experience working a roadside stand near Chambersburg during the past few summers. Like the flowers she sells, she says that she’s “always growing and advancing.”
Some of her business acumen comes from research, which Beckner says is vital for knowing shortcuts that help her flowers last longer. One secret is boiling sunflower stems in water. “It seems counter-productive, but the cut stems can sometimes get air bubbles which prevent them from absorbing water properly.” After searing them, the sunflowers last much longer. “It’s one of the tricks I’ve learned,” Beckner said.
Amber Lyn is thankful to have repeat customers at the Waynesboro market, even if they only buy flowers every other week. “I want my flowers to last,” she said. Her bouquets range from $12 to $22 to $35, small to large. She also creates arrangements for weddings and graduations, if customers want specifically designed flowers for a big occasion.
Beckner also makes macrame items during the winter months and sells them at the market. “It keeps me busy when I’m not gardening, and it’s nice to have items for sale that aren’t perishable.”
Pink Petal’s flowers have excellent curb appeal, which is likely why the farmer’s market puts her creations front and center. But Amber Lyn also has a partner at her booth: her sister-in-law, Lindsey Beckner. “Lindsey makes really good cookies,” Amber Lyn said.
Lindsey owns “B Sweets,” and Amber Lyn doesn’t brag about her cookies just because she’s family. B Sweets started similarly to Pink Petal, as Lindsey transformed her hobby into a business. “I’ve tried different recipes, and I like to bake.”
Lindsey got her kitchen certified to sell to the public and then started her enterprise, gaining experience with Amber at the roadside stand. Now, she makes an assortment of cookies that includes snickerdoodles, chocolate chip, and lemon berry. Asked for her specialty, Lindsey mentioned dark chocolate pistachio and brown butter toffee chocolate chunk. The latter is a rich, flavorful cookie that is a decadent pleasure any day of the week, but especially tasty on a Saturday morning.
Amber Lyn and Lindsey Beckner enjoy sharing a farmers market booth and have learned from being vendors. “We’re here every week,” Amber Lyn said, “and we have fun with each other.”
