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Community Corner

Fresh Produce Not Only Found at Local Grocer

Anna Pastore and family set out a small produce stand at the end of their driveway on Maple Avenue and Second Street Pike.

A Southampton resident finds herself to be an unlikely source for locally grown produce, however her hobby turned small business is popular among locals.

Anna Pastore and her family began setting out a vegetable and flower stand at the end of their Maple Avenue driveway about 30 years ago. Pastore had no initial intention to make money off of her personal gardens.

“I just decided I wanted a garden of my own,” Pastore said. “I wanted my own string beans for me and the family.”  

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Eventually, however, neighbors and locals would ask if she sold what she grew. At first, Pastore did not want to sell them her goods, rather just hand them over. After much insistence, she began her small business.

“I don’t want to…make people feel like I’m trying to sell them something,” Pastore said. “If they do like it, they’ll come and buy it. And it just got that way.”

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For example, she started out only charging a dollar for a bundle of flowers.

The Pastore family grows a number of vegetables each year including tomatoes, peppers, string beans, corn and zucchini. All of their produce is grown organically.

“We don’t spray anything,” she said. “That’s why we started growing because we wanted to eat natural food. Everything in there is natural.”

Pastore and her husband originally had a small stand for produce and flowers and a coffee can to collect money. They pride themselves on always using the honor system.

“Some people put the money in, and of course some don’t,” Pastore said.

Customers would drop money into the coffee can, but some people started taking dollar bills out and leaving only change.

“What really floored me is that they [then] took the whole can,” she said. “It didn’t feel so bad when they started taking just the change, and then they started taking the bills, not that there was that much. But then they took the whole can.”

The money they collect goes towards the expenses needed to work the land. They use the money to put gas in the tractor and seeds in the ground. After the coffee can was pilfered, Pastore’s husband attached a deposit box, with a lock on it, to their mailbox.

“There are a lot of honest people and there are a lot of dishonest people,” she said. “I can’t punish the honest people for the people who aren’t honest. We put it out there regardless.”

Her husband built the structure they now use for their vegetable stand. The couple displays the produce ready to be sold alongside flowers in buckets of water. They posted a sign advising customers to come up to the house if they needed change or suggesting to pay next time they come.

The stand is out as late as Halloween, when families come by to pick pumpkins and buy cornstalks. Pastore paints little faces on the smaller gourds and finds them to be popular with kids.

What is available to the public largely depends on what the Pastores were able to grow. Pastore said she was unable to put anything out until the beginning of July because of prior cold, rainy weather.

“We had all that cold weather and then we had all that rain,” she said. “The plants weren’t even growing because there was too much rain. Then we had that dry spell. It got kind of crazy. We went from one extreme to the other. Basically it’s holding up right now.”

She makes sure that all of her products are suitable for sale.

“We put it out as long as the garden is producing,” Pastore said. “I’m very fussy about that. I wouldn’t sell something I wouldn’t buy.”  

Sometimes, towards the end of the season, Pastore will have few produce choices but still have an abundance of flowers.

“As the season goes on maybe I’ll just flowers left, and I’ll just put the flowers out,” she said. “And that makes some people happy. Some young people stop by, especially the guys stop by to buy some for their sweetie.”

Pastore and her husband enjoy working their land. Their colorful flowers attract a lot of butterflies and humming birds. Pastore also enjoys watching children’s faces as they pick through the pumpkin patch.

“It’s just mainly fun. And the people are always nice,” Pastore said. “They come back every year. As long it pays for the things that we plant, the seeds and the other stuff that we need, that’s all I ask for. I don’t expect to get rich off of it. It’s not that kind of stand.”

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