Food Prices Got You Down? Check Out Your Local Farm Stands

Today I stopped by a farm stand on the way to my parents house and purchased

1 4-lb Butternut Squash-$.50
1 4.5 lb Cabbage $.50
4lbs of Apples $2.00
2 Zucchini $.50

I spent $3.50 on food that would have cost the following at Wegmans.

4 lb Butternut Squash $4
4.5 lb cabbage-$3.11
4 lbs Apples $4
2 zucchini $1.98

$13.09 or a little less than 75% more for food that is avaliable locally, now. In fact, the cabbage was from the farmer's tractor-He had just picked them. That's a huge difference. Last week I got some Delicata squash from this farmer for $.50 each-At Wegmans it's much much more.

Now I'm not anti-Wegmans or anything. Certainly I love shopping at their clean, have-ANYTHING-I-need stores and everyone needs to make a buck in the transaction, I'm not against that. But never forget for a minute that you pay a premium for that kind of atmosphere and service. If you have the opportunity, stop by that farm stand you pass all the time and see what they have to offer. This ones happens to be right on my way to my parent's house but I would drive out of my way a little if I had to for prices like this.

Certainly not all stands have this great a deal but you need to check it out. There is a stand near my home where the woman charges $2 each for her zucchini. Yes, I'm proud of my zucchini too and probably wouldn't sell it for less than $2 either, however, that is why I don't sell my zucchini.  I prefer to give them away (and I'm so stingy I won't even give it to someone unless I'm pretty sure they are going to use it and appreciate it.)

And as you'll notice in the example above, I actually bought zucchini today as my own zucchini was pretty stinky this year and I didn't have enough to even give away to deserving friends!

** Note-The squash is so big that I'll be able to use it for 2 meals. Tomorrow I'm making this and then later in the week I may make some butternut squash soup. Tomorrow's side dish will use:

1/2 squash-$0.25
1 apple- $0.17
2 onions from my garden $.05 (because I started them from those tiny onion sets)
A little olive oil (which I'm not going to figure out the cost of)
salt & pepper
$0.47 for a side dish for 3 people-That's $0.16 per person.  Did you think you could feed anyone, anything for $0.16????

This assumes you have olive oil (which I always do) and salt & pepper, And ok, I grew the onions but they really don't cost much so if you didn't grow anything then you could still get off cheaply (Think $.20 per person!) if you try!