Sweet Botanicals Is Growing Again

Years ago, Emily and I had an idea.

We were already growing herbs, berries, vegetables and fruit here at home, and at some point we started talking about putting up a little roadside stand. Nothing elaborate. Just a place out front where we could put whatever happened to be coming out of the garden: a basket of raspberries, some blueberries, bunches of herbs, maybe vegetables or flowers.

We even gave it a name: Sweet Botanicals.

Then, as often happens, life got busy and the idea got put aside. But the funny thing about putting aside an idea involving plants is that the plants don't necessarily cooperate.

The raspberries kept spreading. The blueberries grew bigger. We planted more fruit trees. Herbs came back every spring. Some things thrived, some things disappeared, and every year the garden taught us something new.

Today we have around 65 raspberry bushes, 15 blueberry bushes and 18 fruit trees, along with the herbs, vegetables and other things we grow around the property. We don't use the land like a commercial farm. It's our home, our garden and a place we've been slowly shaping over the years.

And lately I've been thinking about that old Sweet Botanicals idea again.

So we're bringing it back.

We're starting small. The plan is still basically the same one we had years ago: when we have more than we need, we'd like to make some of it available to our neighbors. What you'll find will depend on the season and on what Mother Nature decides to give us. There won't be a warehouse in the background or produce shipped in from somewhere else. If we didn't grow it here, it won't be sitting on the stand pretending we did.

Right now we're working on the stand itself. I'm looking for an old farm wagon, preferably something big, wooden and weathered, with enough room for baskets and shelves. I want something that looks like it belongs here, not a shiny new retail display ordered out of a catalog.

We'll use this blog to document the process: getting the stand together, watching the berries and fruit through the seasons, experimenting with herbs, figuring out what works and probably documenting a few things that don't.

We'll also let you know what's actually available. If the raspberries suddenly decide they're all going to ripen on the same Tuesday in July, you'll hear about it here.

Sweet Botanicals isn't really a new business.

It's an old idea that kept growing while we weren't looking.

And now we're curious to see what it becomes.