How are prices at your local fruit/veggie stand?

We're all aware of how prices are rising at the local supermarket, and how they are affected every time the cost of fuel goes up. Understandable. But your local roadside fruit/vegetable stand should be pretty much immune to those factors, no?

I live in New England, and we've had decent weather this spring/summer. I like tomatoes, but hate the greenhouse stuff they sell at Market Basket. So I stopped by a farm stand yesterday to pick some up.

The cost for 2 medium size tomatoes? $3.45! Say what?? I was flabbergasted and didn't buy them.

Anybody else seeing these prices in your area?

reply to post by mishigas


Thats cheap compared to what I have paid for tomatoes here in SW ohio. The farmer explained he sells them by the pound and that he guarentees that they are organic , no pesticides, plus they are not bruised or unripe. I would rater pay $4.00 for a couple of really nice wonderful tomatoes than to spend the same 4 bucks on a sandwich made by some high school kid at a drive thru. I guess it boils down to what is worth spending 4 bucks on right?

reply to post by Magantice

reply to post by mishigas
Thats cheap compared to what I have paid for tomatoes here in SW ohio. The farmer explained he sells them by the pound and that he guarentees that they are organic , no pesticides, plus they are not bruised or unripe. I would rater pay $4.00 for a couple of really nice wonderful tomatoes than to spend the same 4 bucks on a sandwich made by some high school kid at a drive thru. I guess it boils down to what is worth spending 4 bucks on right?

Well, I see your point, but these tomatoes were nothing special. Buggy, holes from worms?, etc. And shouldn't the fact that the farmer not spend money on pesticides actually lower the price?

The market basket sells a package of 4 or 5 smaller tomatoes for about $2.50. Problem is, they are greenhouse grown, not as tasty as sun ripened.

$4.00 is too much for me to spend on 2 tomatoes.

reply to post by mishigas


Well my two tomatoes for $4.00 were perfect and one slice of one cover a whole piece of bread. But from the sounds of your tomatoes......I wouldn't have paid for them either. You usually get what you pay for from a decent farmer. Keep looking....it harvest time and prices will be lower.

reply to post by Magantice


Good for you! That's what I wanted them for -- yummy sandwiches. I also cook with them nearly every meal.

reply to post by mishigas


Actually no........................not using pesticides causes a farmer to have to dispose of any buggy, wormy or imperfect fruits and veggies. They have to make up the loss by selling the perfect fruit and veggies at a higher price. Sorry for the second post. I had forgotten to mention that.

reply to post by mishigas


Well when you go to a farmers market, look at everybodys stuff then make your choices because those guys DO compete with each other to have the best stuff in the market. Some farmers sit awhile between sales and others have long lines of people waiting to buy their stuff. Oh buy some dark honey from a bee farmer because no bacteria can grow in honey and its natures burn a wound medicine........Im just sayin............

reply to post by mishigas


I'm in Australia, east coast.

Our prices are not anywhere near that bad, but I have to say that the quality of fruit, veg, & meat has been on a rapid decline for the past 2 years at least.

Meat has become stringy, full of sinew, especially lamb & beef.

If you want to find any veges (tomatos as you give example of is about all I buy) is impossible to find one that is aesthetically appealing, they are either far from ripe or well past their date, with damage all over.

Quality has gone down way past what I ever expected, price is up but not as bad as you. I am glad for 2 things, I dont eat a lot of fruit & veg, & it doesnt matter what food I do eat, at least I have the ability to go buy it, & for that I am glad. Not having a go at you, I agree fully, quality & price have gone out the window, I just had to add, I'm gratefull I can buy what I want with ease when I watch yet more images from Africa.

reply to post by mishigas


Wow, I live in Barcelona and we only buy our veggies from the market or from little veggie shops. For 6 tomatoes we pay about 89 euro cents of course we have different kinds , for bigger kinds about 6 it's 1.20 euro, I'm a vegan and only buy veggies and things like that and don't spend more than 15 bucks a week. pretty cheap this side and good quality a lot of farm produce too..

reply to post by mishigas


I work in a small grocery store in a small town near Seattle. The owner has a straight truck refer unit and he goes all summer to eastern Washington to get "farm sorted" produce. Right now we have corn three ears for a dollar, peaches and nectarines and plums for $1.69 lb. Watermelons for $0.49 lb. Apples as low as $0.99 lb.

Earlier in the season we had huge asparagus for $0.49 lb until Costco came in and put all the farmers under contract. Our price went to $0.99 lb. However, the Safeway was selling their Asparagus for $3.99 lb to $4.99 lb. However theirs was not the local stuff and it was not huge like ours.

The problem here is that we didn't get warm here till real late this year, even while this summers heat wave was underway we still remained cold. Consequently everything has been late. The stuff we get in our tent outside the doors of the store is almost entirely local and free from all the gobble-dee-gook. Our Milk is also free of crapola as well as the beef and chicken. Stuff is a little pricy but Our owner has a member of his family who has to eat gluten free products so this has made him painfully aware of GMO foods and HFCS and such things, We are not HFCS free but we sell a lot of Mexican Cokes and by the case. This last has mostly been my doing.

reply to post by mishigas


Oh, right now we have huge regular tomatoes and large Romas for $0.99 lb. Sorry, forgot the tomatoes.

I saw a sign up at one stand with 2 big bubba looking types
Locally Grown By Amish- Organic

And it was these huge, huge red and yellow bell peppers that caught my eye- mutant big, 8 inch peppers.
All these young hippy looking folks were buying that stuff.

I just laughed. Ain't no organic peppers like that and the Amish don't live anywhere near this part of Georgia.

But mostly prices are up a bit but much better than the grocery stores. People go by prices in the stores for what to charge for their own produce.

What I'm getting mad about is I can't seem to get any mushrooms anywhere around here. The bins are all empty and I ask and they say they are out and not sure when they will be more in. It's been a week. I like to cook mushrooms.

Sorry for the double post- but on a separate thing- about those tomatoes...

WE grew our own here and had a great harvest through June and July, but the temperature hit 90 and stayed over 90 and tomatoes really don't LIKE that. Also then it got very dry and we went into drought.

I know a guy who has 5 acres of tomatoes and come August he told me his plants were just dying. He irrigates but the temp was killing them. We had week after week after week of high 90s and 100s in Georgia. Then it was dry on top of that, and usually it is humid here.

So anyway, the heatwave we experienced in prime producing season could be affecting tomato prices.

If i had not planted so many, I'd not have any now. As it is I get 2 or 3 a day. It was laundry baskets and I thought I'd never get them all canned and dried. But I did.

Here in Wanganui, NZ, our prices in the supermarkets are so high.

But we have a great veg place, called Hill Street Greens, which undercuts those prices. They have veg that is unsuitable for supermarkets.

For example, they have HUGE brocc for $1.50, and the supermarkets have tiny brocc for $2.70!

So get real, supermarkets!

overpriced. Yesterday i payed £1.33 for two potatoes. Next year i am growing my own

reply to post by hadriana

Sorry for the double post- but on a separate thing- about those tomatoes...

WE grew our own here and had a great harvest through June and July, but the temperature hit 90 and stayed over 90 and tomatoes really don't LIKE that. Also then it got very dry and we went into drought.

I know a guy who has 5 acres of tomatoes and come August he told me his plants were just dying. He irrigates but the temp was killing them. We had week after week after week of high 90s and 100s in Georgia. Then it was dry on top of that, and usually it is humid here.

So anyway, the heatwave we experienced in prime producing season could be affecting tomato prices.

If i had not planted so many, I'd not have any now. As it is I get 2 or 3 a day. It was laundry baskets and I thought I'd never get them all canned and dried. But I did.

I wish I could have grown my own, but condo regs say no gardens. Sorry to hear about your weather....GA is famous for it's humidity and heat -- perfect growing weather. Our weather here has been very good so far -- of course that means lots of snow coming...

Come on grow your own (besides mishigas), what kind of survivalists are you?! Nothing beats a fresh off the vine, big juicy tomato.

Not really sure about the local produce stands prices and whatnot, we grow our own for the most part. The store prices are just getting ridiculous, though. Nearly $2 for a large onion and green peppers and the like are near the same if not more.

We did about 7-8 different types of tomatoes this year, all from heirloom seeds we've kept going from year to year.

Everything from these fantastic little sweet grape tomatoes, a yellow cherry that gets bigger than a golf ball and has a very thin skin with nearly no acidity at all. Then there's a sort of mottled brown cherry of the same size with a real meaty deep red flesh.

The three longest standing heirloom maters we have are a nice canning tomato that looks like a red jalapeno on steroids [5-6" long, easily], another canning roma-like one which puts out fruit that are damn near the size of a beer can. The last is one we term 'world's largest' which we consistently get 1 1/2 to 2 pound slicing tomatoes from



One this year weighed over two pounds and looked like two extra large tomatoes conjoined like twins in a heart-shaped fashion. beautiful and just packed with flavor.

A lot of canning and freezing helps keep food costs lower in the off months, and this year we got a nice quality vacuum sealer that was given quite the workout this season. corn, okra, green beans, etc.

There's just no comparison to the stuff you get from the grocers. Corn grown in the garden, picked, husked, blanched, cut off, vacuum-sealed and frozen within an hour of it being pulled from the stalk. Now that's freshness you can believe in.

Holy cow, what's in your water?? That tomato is bigger than my neighbor's yappy little dog!

in Maryland, prices have been reasonable, usually about $3 pound. Irene messed things up pretty bad; lot of the guys closed down. plenty of melons but no squash.