Selling Plants at the local Flea Market

I was in need of The Next Big Thing. You know how things get sometimes… I was too sad to lift my head up, brought to my knees (very bad posture.) But gardening saved me once again, to the point that I had loads of plants needing to get gone. I found my way to a local flea market here in Venice, putting money down to reserve a booth space. There was a brandy new one they had just bricked and awninged tucked outside next to a main entrance.




Pay attention to the innocent-looking air conditioner lurking shark-like at the rear of the picture.

My first weekend at the flea, I brought the houseplants and cuttings I had been planning to sell at an unfortunate business venture wherein friendship and faith took a dive. (Have I mentioned the Jersey Connection yet?) I did okay and made my booth fee back. I was so happy to be in my little booth. My January birthday happened that weekend. Life got good again.


Buddy, a retired nurseryman who spent all day every day at this (weekends-only) market, looking after things, saw the germ, the gem, the seeds contained in that first weekend. He knew how to make that tiny space WORK. And I knew enough to listen to good advice.


The following week Bud built up the booth. He brought in his own umbrella’d picnic tables. He hung lattice and shelves. We went and scoped out the competition: GIANT STORES (you know who they are). He told me what plants to order and from whom. When the plants came, he watered them and tried to teach me how to keep things flowering and looking good in the dusty, windy conditions at the flea market.

I added the unusual/weird plants I love so much: The odd succulents, the houseplants-gone-wild, I was now growing in the ground… I bought small ones and grew ‘em into great big ones. I had Coleus to fear! The new varieties grow in sun and shade. They do grow well in the ground here in Florida, but nurture one in a great big pot and Whoa Baby! As my daughter says, “It’s GI-NORMOUS!”

I stocked Australian tree ferns (Sphaeropteris cooperi) and Desert Rose, (Adenium obesa). I had the paddle plants (those flat-leaved succulent Kalanchoe thyrsifolia) that proved to be a best-seller.

As well as harboring our year-round residents, Venice and Englewood, Florida play host to escapees from the north from October through Easter. Buddy knew they’d want color for their winter homes. We stocked the little booth with hundreds of geraniums and hanging baskets. Like Kevin Costner, we built it and they came. And they could not resist trying to take a bit of heaven back home, packing plants up in luggage, trunks and campers to be watered nursed and prayed along until the danger of frost passed in New York, Michigan, Maryland.

I gave "pregnant onions" (Ornithogalum longibracteatum) away to kids who expressed any interest at all. I know those plants are pregnant with possibility (lots of baby bulblets growing under oniony skin) and the kids will have the beginnings of garden fever.

I had robust rosemary plants in one-gallon pots I was able to sell for $3. I told my customers about the two four-foot lollipop-shaped fragrant rosemary shrubs growing at the entrance to my house. (This sounds a little formal. Believe me, its not.)

My home garden was earning its keep. If anything self-seeded at home, I dug it, potted it, and eventually brought it in to my booth. One week it was sunflowers nodding under the umbrellas and Mexican blanket flower (Gaillardia) literally volunteered their way into pots and on out into the world. I noticed Cosmos had seeded itself in the really rough gravel of the parking lot adjacent to my booth. Florida, Baby!

But.
When summer came the owners of the market turned on the air conditioner in their office which was on the other side of the wall we shared. They were inside, air conditioned. The exhaust from their AC piped right into my booth outside making being in that booth a death-defying act. Then they began the paving of the new parking lot adjacent to said booth, the area roped off with yellow hazard ribbon. Couldn't get near the stinkin' booth. During my enforced retirement, my daughter was shopping there and heard them selling my plants, advertising the great bargains over the loudspeakers.
Leave us say, (yes, still from New Jersey), that the police were involved. They stood guard as my daughters and I reclaimed my plants. I'm banned from the flea market.

So, I'm working from home again. Insert picture of Mackauley Culken here - I type and watch the birds in the bird bath and the passion vine climbing at breakneck speed up a trellis (and a rose vine) outside my window.

I dash outside for breaks and get in some swing-time. On weekends I’m pushing the petals from my really fantastic home garden at occasional plant sales. I lay in wait, needing and wanting some company, writing here to all of my new imaginary friends. I'm spreading the word that gardening can get very exciting here in the Land of the Flowers. Oh, and call me if you wanna buy some plants!