Pretty common for folk down here to just set up off the back of their trucks by the road and sell their extra produce. Usually all cash. Anything from fruit and vegetables to fish ( evening from bream to Buffalo) and shrimp. Can find home made candy soaps , and cooked items in the weekends too.Lotta older people do it just to get out the house. There's a few I'll stop buy and buy something just as an excuse to chat. Have also traded coon and possums before for some stuff.This common round y'all ?

Yes....mostly fresh produce and citrus down here.

Ya pretty common watermelon time for sure. Also every Saturday we have a outdoor farmers market.

Produce stands are very common around here. Most of the small ones are on the honor system. Most of the larger ones buy and resell. Most of the large buyers, at the Amish produce auction I go to, buy to resell. In the Fall, I get a kick out of seeing them place new pumpkins, out in a field, like they grew there, twice a week.

I know one guy well, who does 11 farmers markets a week. He's the main buyer at the produce auction I like. He has several employees that sell for him. I've sold him peafowl and quail. I got all the money for my second last truck, from selling him peafowl. He does well over 6 figures in sales a year, from what he has told me.

I've never seen anyone sell fish that way here.

There used to be a lot of guys who would approach you in parking lots, around Dayton, Ohio to sell steak and beef. They always told the a similar lie, that basically their truck had broken down and their boss told them to sell all the meat cheap. The same guy apparently had that misfortune 5 times a week sometimes. It's illegal to sell meat that way in Ohio.

Keith

Keith I didn't think about the honor systems. We have a couple small ones around that work that way, locked bolted cash box, produce, plants one out by the farm also sells dog food,. With a list of prices. I guess they work because they are still doing them. That one is 3 years going strong. I'm pretty sure those people maybe ex Amish they are from Pennsylvania and acted like they could have been Amish. Nice people though.


My uncle retired and before he passed away him and his son did the farmers market with thier produce. And he went up two tax brackets he made more through the summer and fall then working all year. I wish I had his green thumb.

Mainly just produce. You’ll see crabs and spot or croaker once in awhile, but we’re 2 hours East from the source and I wouldn’t trust most of the outfits I see to sell perishable seafood.

Small farm stands do well, but resellers of commercial watermelon, corn and maters are pretty easy to spot. I can go to my backyard for those.

Have enjoyed many a Melon and 'Lope from the back of a truck. They do make sure to keep the prices very close the the Grocery store's tho! LOL They seem to not want to give change, will hang onto a $20 like it's the only one they've ever seen and try to make change with more produce. LOL

Muskrat at liquor stores on Friday nights...

It's not hard to buy at auction and resell produce. The potential profit margins are fantastic, though the amount of waste can be high if you over buy. At the auction I go to tomatoes go down to nickel a pound at their peak. I have seen many bushels of bell peppers sell for $2.00. Corn goes down to 60 cents a dozen. Baskets of mums go down to 75 cents each. The sellers lose money sometimes.

There is likely a wholesale produce auction near you.

We grow a lot of variety to eat fresh. I still buy a lot to can and freeze, because it is easier to put up a big batch all at once.

Keith

I do not sell under a tent on the street. But starting tomorrow morning I will fill my yard with watermelons and cantaloupes, Been doing it for 20 years, people see my sign at the end of the street at the main road and they start coming. It is just hard now getting school aged boys that want to pick anymore,

Fairly common around here.

"Local Produce" stands start showing up here around the first of April. We usually aren't even past our last frost date by then. People are so gullible. Sometimes there is a guy at the flea market selling fresh buffalo.

Fish or meat?

"Local" produce sellers have lots of sneaky tricks. The pumpkin patch sellers around here plant pumpkin plants in late August to early September. Pumpkins take 90 to 120 days to grow. That would put harvest from between late November until nearly January, well after frost would kill the vines. They plant late so the vines look pretty. They lay new pumpkins out as they sell. Some of the pumpkin patches, of only an acre or less, get many hundreds of buyers on weekends, selling many thousands of pumpkins. New pumpkins are laid out after closing, before they open to the crowds again. Nobody questions why the pumpkins with the dry stems are no longer attached to the green plants.

Many sellers grow a few items and then buy many more at auction to round out their offerings.

I was talking to an old Amish woman, named Susie, who buys the second largest most of produce at the auction, when it's cheap. She told me that the nursery, where her children work, grows 168,000 mums and asters a year. Susie has a shop, with near constant business, that sells preserves, jellies, jams, pickles, fresh produce, deserts, bread, honey, eggs and maple syrup.

Another old Amish lady, named Mary, has a competing business that does the same.

Keith

Yes

Fish.

Down in Southern Illinois where wife's people live have a turnip patch on the side of White Rock Road. There's a big mail box there for you to put your money in after you pick your own turnips.
Honor system.
You have to be careful when you open the mailbox so that the money already stuffed in there doesn't blow away before you get yours stuffed in there.

Very common to see people selling corn out of their vehicle here late summer.

Couple years in a row now I seen some rough looking Indians selling blueberries on the side of the highway.

Almost every community here have farmers markets from late spring to early October with produce and seasonal swings. Some indiviual roadside stands but most of those are self serve with deposit boxes and are not staffed.
In our area Hmong have many stands at the markets as do the Amish in some of the communities.

Bryce

I see it in the bigger cities. May be some in our little town, but some farmers have their own little “stores” so we shop there instead.