The Cottage Smallholder


stumbling self sufficiency in a small space

Small is Beautiful

 

Gate side stand with cottage in the background

Gate side stand with cottage in the background

Well the little gate side stand is up.

It’s made from an old wooden box that originally held three jeroboams of champagne. Unfortunately not drunk by me. The grand opening was a little later than anticipated as it took a while to screw the box to the fence. The whole process was monitored by two Polish builders who were cleaning out the guttering of the house next door. Once the umbrella was in place I was protected from any stray splashes.

Gate side stand

Gate side stand

The umbrella is attached to the other side of the fence with wire clips and the cash box is attached to the umbrella. An old white linen napkin hangs at the back and the golden stars are temporary until I can get into the attic to find our outdoor fairy lights.

The whole process has been great fun. I’m going to make some jars of Belgian Pears today as I found three bags on the Tesco CFC.

All I need now is customers!


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16 Comments

  1. Your little stall looks great Fiona. I read your blog every day. Hope you are starting to feel better.
    Are there any rules and regulations about selling from the gate? I live very close to the local primary school and have mums and dads passing twice a day so think this would be an ideal thing for me to do as I love making preserves but there are only two of us eating it! You have really set me thinking! Thanks.

  2. magic cochin

    What a smart shop, I love buying things from gate-side stalls. And I love selling things too (usually plants).

    Your pots of preserves look delightful 🙂
    Celia

  3. I wish you the best of luck with your stall. I would love to do something like that, but I live in rather a quiet street in a suburb of Sydney and with the heat we’ve been having the jars would probably overheat! I’ve been reading you blog for over a year now and I love it. I hope you are feeling better in the New Year. Happy Christmas.

  4. Looks fantastic and I wish you luck. Too bad we couldn’t pass the bubbly around online:)

  5. Good luck Fiona!
    It all looks lovely so I am sure you will be very successful!

  6. Elizabeth

    Your gate side stand looks fab-u-lous. Hope it does really well, wish we had something like this near my house.

    I’ve only recently found your blog and now read it daily. I love it and your recipes and garden tips are inspirational.

  7. Hi Fiona,

    I think this idea it’s brilliant, very me but we don’t live in such a trustworthy area unfortunately.
    I love your blogs and site which I found by chance three months ago whilst looking for sloe gin recipes and have visited daily ever since.
    I wish you every success, you’ll be selling on the internet next ha ha, joking apart, you could have a great little home based business.

  8. Good luck! Hope you get lots of customers. I keep seeing signs by people’s houses here saying they have chickens or rabbits or turkeys for sale, but I don’t know whether they mean live or dead, and my Croatian isn’t good enough yet for me to find out without running the risk of having a car full of live bunnies.

  9. I don’t think you would have many customers here in Latvia, far too cold for a bit of outdoor shopping, your jars would be frozen to the boxes. It was a beautiful day but it is now -16C as the sunset. Hope you get some interest and people enjoy your produce

  10. It’s as though Rube Goldberg got the reuse/recycle bug! I love it, and I hope the customers come flocking to your gate.

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