This afternoon I was driving and noticed a small sign along the road which read Butler’s Farm. I turned down the long gravel driveway and at the end I found a detached garage. The garage had 2 tables set up with apples nboth sides, and a couple of refrigerator cases with vegetables inside.
I don’t know about you, but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE finding these little vegetable stands off the side of the road. There is just something magical about them. Ordinary people, selling ordinary food, hoping to make a few bucks with their excess summer bounty.
No gimmicks, just a few hand written signs here and there telling you what things are.
And my favorite part about these roadside stands? The money box. Everyone’s “til” is set up differently. Some people will stick out an old mayonnaise jar, and some people will set out a cash box, it just depends. But this was the first time I have ever seen an actual safe bolted to a table. What fun! I only hope there is some little kid {or grand-kid} who gets to open the safe to collect the money every once in a while and count the loot.
Oh, and the prices? They can’t be beat.
Fallen apples were $.25 per pound {I bought 12 pounds} and the other apples were $.50 a pound {another 12 pounds}. 24 Pound of fresh, local apples for 9 bucks. What a deal!
If you have ever sold anything at the end of your driveway, you are awesome. Thank you for trusting people to do the right thing.
Peace Out Girl Scouts. Have a great night.
~Mavis
Evonne says
I live in North Bend, WA and have found NO good produce stands nearby. I tried the local Thursday farmers market and most of the prices were no better than what I saw in the grocery store and the produce looked tired the day I was there. I’ve been considering a road trip to Yakima one weekend to get some produce. I’m on a mission to get some tomatillos as my husband makes a KILLER verde sauce with them!
Tessa says
I got some tomatillo’s from my girl friends neighbor this year. I’ve never used them before and I’m looking for a good canning recipe for them. I found one online from “Ball? Kerr” the canning people and it canned real well but the taste was not good! It was a “raw” sauce and it tasted raw! I think the tomatillo’s must need to be roasted first or something!
I hope you can help me out with a good CANNING RECIPE for tomatillo’s!
Megan says
Jealous…
Mary Ann says
so jealous!
Sadly, we have nothing like that here in So Cal. We’re driving up to Kings Canyon National Park (5-1/2 hours) on the 16th and I’m hopeful that the apple lady will be selling on the side of the road at that time. She had Empire apples one year and I haven’t seen those anywhere but Massachusetts!
Denise says
Ooo, Evonne, I would love a recipe for verde sauce! Just was given a bag of tomatillos today!
Sakura says
We have a cherry farm about an hour from my house that is self serve. He only grows pie cherries and sells tem either pitted, pressed, dehydrated or made into pies. When your ready to pay you just put your money into an old box. I loved it!
Kat D says
Apples? You got apples? So very, very jealous. Early spring combined with a hard frost with the added fun of extreme heat/drought means fruit is very difficult to come by this year. No apples or pears in our yard or out at our farm or any where else in the area. Great find for you!
Janel @ Happy Lie, Happy Wife says
I went to a pick your own berries place like that once and it was awesome. They had the most amazing jam too! But living in So. Cal you don’t find things like this often and never that cheap.
Chela says
Wish I would have seen this last night since my trip to Wilco for tomatoes was a bust. My tomatoes are just not ripening and some are staring to rot. I would have been very happy with apples instead.
Sheila M. says
When my son was 12 (now 22), my husband said he could sell firewood as long as my son was the one who cut and split it. My son would fill a wheelbarrow full of wood and put it by the curb with a sign that said $5. When we would return home and notice the wheelbarrow empty, all the kids would hurry out of the car to see where the buyer left the $5. Sometimes it was in the wheelbarrow under a piece of wood they left behind, sometimes under the wheelbarrow itself, and sometimes stuck in the front door jam. I think the whole time my son sold wood we only failed to find the $5 once.
Brandi @ Savvy Student Shopper says
That’s so sweet!
I hope I run into one of these stands one day. We’re going to go apple picking again this fall to make the yummy fall goodies, but the apples are at least $1.49/lb :/
darlene says
This is where I sell my excess eggs. I put them on a small table in a cooler on ice with a sign selling them for $3 a dozen, or $2.50 with 5 empty egg cartons. The money jar is in the cooler also. It’s also a great place to put a free box for excess produce I can’t use, along with empty plastic shopping bags for people to take what they want. I got rid of an entire wheelbarrow full of radishes this way 🙂
Miriam says
Is it bad that I think around where I live, the whole stand and the safe would somehow get stolen anyway and he’d have to shut down? Sometimes I hate living in/near the city.
I would love to be able to set something like that up some day and be able to sell the produce from my yard.
Sarah says
Thank you for the heads-up about this wonderful place! We visited today and had a wonderful experience; we even received a tour of the apple orchard/garden. So glad we make the trip out to Gig Harbor and now I need to get busy canning all my apples!!
Mavis says
You got a tour? Lucky!!! 🙂 Have fun canning all those apples. I have a feeling I’ll be back there again soon.
mary says
My son, my mom and myself also went to Butlers this weekend.We were there the same time as Sarah and her family. It was so much fun Donna and her husband where wonderful hosts showing us around the apple orchard. Thanks for the heads up on this wonderful place. I wil certinaly be stopping back by there soon.
Chantal says
Took my 20 year old daughter with me yesterday to buy apples and check the place out. We bothed LOVED this place so much! Mrs. Butler gave us a tour and let us photograph her dahlia garden and orchard. This place is amazing! Thanks for letting us know about this hidden gem. I wish I could rip out all my grass and replace it with a giant dahlia garden now!
Mavis says
Ahhh now I’m going to have to go back so I can get a tour. I love dahlia flowers. I’m always amazed at all the different varieties there are. I wonder if they sell their tubers? I’ll have to ask.