Back in the days before we had a kid and a bunch of blogs and had time on our hands, we spent a couple of years with a home garden big enough to sell produce at our local farmer's market. We specialized in hot peppers - habaneros, jalapenos, hot banana, cayenne, chiltepin, the list goes on - and cherry tomatoes, specifically Sweet 100s, which are like the candy of home fruit and vegetable gardening, and Yellow Peard, which have a lot of sweetness but also a delicious citrus edge. We also sold okra, but there wasn't much of a market for naturally-grown okra at that time.

At full tilt we were showing up with 30-40 pounds of cherry tomatoes in a 10-gallon storage container and selling them by the pint for $3 a pop. The farmer's market was struggling and we never sold more than 20 pounds or so, but between that and the other produce we would sometimes walk away with $100 or $150 for four hours of our time that were very rewarding. When you factor in all of the gardening time and expenses, of course, it never made financial sense.

Then came a child, and the immediate reduction and slow ramping back up of our gardening ambitions. At four, Z is actually a big help and a lot of fun to have in the garden, and takes pleasure in every part of gardening, except weeding (did you know some goatweed has thorns?). A few weeks ago, we visited the farmer's market to buy vegetables after a bit of an absence, and were surprised to see how much it had grown. The market was thriving, with twenty or thirty sellers and everything from fruit and vegetables to locally-roasted coffee, soaps, and handicrafts. The parking lot the market is held in was crowded with shoppers, too. As we recalled the pleasure we got from selling at the market during its slower days, and the fact that we had suddenly moved back into having more cherry tomatoes than we could eat or even had time to process and save, we realized that coming back to the farmer's market once or twice would be a lot of fun to do with Z.

So last weekend we got up early, made some green smoothies for breakfast, and packed ten pints of cherry tomatoes and four or five pints of green beans, grabbing her play table and chair on the way out the door. And for a $10 day selling fee, we helped Z set up shop.




She had a lot of fun and did a great job. It took almost two hours to sell all the stuff but between the conversation, the people-watching and the occasional forays to explore the rest of the market, she declined all offers to leave early, even as the sun broke out over the edge of the building we were next to and things started getting hot. We helped her count money and she made change. She drew pictures with markers to give each paying customer. She forced samples on people who had stopped idly to chat, and once they tasted, they bought. When you're selling garden-fresh cherry tomatoes, sampling is key, because they are 100x better than store-bought!

Z was determined to stay until we sold everything, which we almost did, except for a pint of green beans and half a pint of cherry toms left over from sampling, for a profit of $35 less our $10 fee.

As we were getting ready to leave Z discovered that the woman a couple stalls down from us was selling handmade dolls. They were very nice, but I initially rejected Z's pleas to let her spend her portion of our earnings on the doll. It was filled with organic millet, really nicely made, and priced at $10. My thought was that this would work against our goal of teaching her the value of the money she had earned. Plus, I am a cheapskate.

In the end, though, I realized that what she had really learned that day was the value of her work - that she could exchange her labor and something she had produced for something that was valuable to her. That concept in itself is a big deal for a kid to realize. She gets the concept of money, but allowing her to spend her portion of the money (we agreed to split it with her 50/50 - and we got a good bargain, as she was the key to all our sales) was far more instructive in cementing in her mind just what she had accomplished.

Plus, the woman refused to take the stated $10 price of the doll, and gave her $4.25 back (all the change she had). In turn we gave her the leftover half pint of cherry tomatoes and a pint of green beans. My spendthrift heart soared.


And Z was proud to have worked to earn the money for a new, beloved baby.


By the way, that guy at the table next to Z's in the top picture? A honey man. And we're getting bees!