Produce stores are good for you
I have firm ideas about what makes a good gardening shop, and it starts with knowledgeable staff and real gardening stuff on sale. You should be able to buy more than plants in bloom that will do for a gift on the weekend you buy them, but be dead by the following weekend.
We have taken to buying things at our local feed and produce shop. It is about as far from the gift shop type of nursery as it is possible to get. For a start, they don’t sell any plants - except dead ones, packaged for sale as animal feed. But you can buy lucerne hay here for mulching, and kilometres of black plastic polypipe, and manure in hessian sacks and all sorts of good stuff. Shopping there is like eating bran. You get bulk. It feels worthy. We also get dog treats, and filters for the axolotyl tank, and new leads for the dog.
The people at the produce shop know what life is about. They do business from behind a counter covered in remnant seed and straw. They take cheques, but the biro tied to the cash register never works. There is too much vegetable or animal matter on the nib. Over their heads hang halters and harnesses for everything from horses to great danes. Above that there is a notice board advertising agricultural things, such as dipping troughs for sale and shearing services.
Last time we went there were two new cardboard boxes in front of the cash register, labelled “Pig’s Ears” and “Pig’s trotters”. I looked into the boxes not expecting literal truth. Somewhere in my mind was the name “Pigface”, which is of course a pretty little plant, not the face of a pig.
But there were real pig’s ears there, and pig’s feet. Dried ones. The ears looked like big pink potato chips except for the still visible blue veins. I bought my dog Flash a pig’s ear. She loved it, and buried it among the nasturtiums.
I have counted two dozen different kinds of watering trough on sale in this store. They sell six different sizes of star pickets, and a range of fencing accessories.
Nothing in the produce store ever flowers. Everthing is muted beige or green or, in the case of dried pig bits, pink. These are the colours of anti-romance, of Thomas Hardy and hard yakka.
We buy as much of our gardening supplies as we can from the produce store. We love it.
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POSTED IN: Freebies, How to Grow Stuff
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