Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Roadside Stands do work

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Brian and Jacqueline Potzkai" <potzkai AT hotmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Roadside Stands do work
  • Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 10:44:54 -0800


We operate a roadside (farmgate) operation and go to market and find it fantastic! I would recommend seeing this website:

attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/directmkt.html

it is an excellent site to see how to set-up, advertise and decide what type of farmgate you wish to offer, ie: fruit stand, PYO, etc.

We're on a major road as well and have lots of traffic, therefore it was important to still be quite visible but far enough back to keep the dust from traffic off the produce. To keep produce cool wasn't too much of a challenge - we built under a big willow tree + we place our produce on clean cotton sheets (flannel and white) and sometimes used straw then we hose produce and sheets down with water about 3-5 times/day. Cukes, lettuce, etc. have lasted with no problem throughout the day. oh by the way we use a plastic tarp wrapped around the tables to keep them protected. At market we use the large square margarine tubs and freeze water in them overnight in the mornings we put the tubs in the bottom of all of the display barrels and wrap the frozen tubs with white flannel sheets that are wet (we use barrels for tomatoes, eggplant, lettuce, etc). No problems at market yet. Since the tubs are square they can be wrapped and placed on tables as well, this helped to keep our beans, peas and cukes cool.

You can get all this stuff real cheap. Sheets we buy second hand for a couple of dollars, $20 and you have all the sheets you need, white baby blankets (flannel) are excellent to have on hand. The barrels we get from the pool supply store for free. We only use the ones that were used for chlorine tablets. Wash them well and allow to dry. Chlorine dissipitates, so we rinse it often. These barrels are usually white on the outside and can be painted with some really neat comical vegies, writing, etc. They make a great display and have quite a bit of resistance to water.

If you find you need your lettuce to last longer you can wrap the lettuce root in wet paper towel and cover with cellophane. This is more time consuming but effective. It is quicker when you have a well set-up packaging station. Good luck and enjoy, Jacqueline


_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.




  • Roadside Stands do work, Brian and Jacqueline Potzkai, 03/13/2001

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page