Thoughts from the T-Shirt Lady

Well, it certainly has been a busy month at our vegetable stand. When we started, we had a few different items, and customers every day. When the sweetcorn was finally ready, starting the 26th of June, word traveled fast, and we have had a lot more customers each day.

The situation in our area is one of very dry conditions. We have not had rain for a few weeks. Yet the corn continues to thrive. We really can’t figure it out - other than the water table being so close to the surface, lots of fertilizer that was applied, and spraying for bugs at the right time (my dh is so good with all that!) .

Our corn is very sweet, and we have many repeat customers. We are so pleased. Of course the produce stand is what I take care of - have even put some of my tee shirts out for sale - and I enjoy talking with everyone.

Most days are quite comfortable for me to sit outside, read for awhile, and just relax. These past few days the temps have been in the mid 90’s with a high heat index. So much of the time has been spent indoors - with me going outside as customers come in our driveway.

We finally started having some tomatoes for sale, and in a few days, we’ll also have cantaloupes. Our watermelons probably won’t produce anything that is good enough to sell - with the lack of rain.

Talk about rain - you should sit outside with me and watch the rain clouds. All they do, is circle our area and move on to other cities that have more than enough. It’s disheartening, but nothing we can do other than hope that each day brings a new promise of rain.

I have been pretty successful in selling my tee shirts at our produce stand. And that’s good, since there seems to be a lull on the internet as far as orders from my on-line website is concerned. Perhaps that’s just as well - since I don’t have much time each day to work on orders - up at 5:30 - do whatever I can for my business for a couple of hours. Pick tomatoes or blueberries before it gets too hot, get my tee shirts set out in our tent (tent stays up all the time) as well as all the other items I need for selling the veggies. Our stand opens at 10am but there are many days when customers show up before 9am, and that’s ok - if my dh has already picked a lot of produce for the day.

We officially close at 6:30pm - but again, there are times when customers pull in the driveway after that. Also, on Sunday’s we are open from 11am to 3pm - most of the time we don’t have customer come until noon or later - but 3pm doesn’t seem to be late enough as we often have customers drifting in for a couple of more hours. At this point we are trying to decide for next year if we will be open on Sundays. I opt for being open - but not until 1pm to 5pm instead of 11 to 3. Of course we already have business cards and fliers printed and distributed stating our current hours - so we don’t want to change it this year.

More later - and if you are in the area, do drop in!

Sandi