My wife and I ran a produce stand that sold eggs, honey, cut flowers, and fruit/veggies for three years on the honor system. We NEVER had a single problem. We once had a guy leave an IOU for five dollars. One week later he walked out from town(three miles) and came and found my wife to apologize for not coming sooner. He had run out of gas and rather than put the money in his tank he waited for good weather and walked to our place to pay us. Sometimes to get the best out of people you have to give them a chance to be good.

I wanted some gaudy (I do mean hot colors) cannas and didn't want to spend $10-20 each, so I picked up a box of mixed hot colors at Sam's Club -- 16 of them for the price of one at a nursery. I'm starting a "Hot Tropics" bed and have been digging it out below grade and filling it up with lots of composted manure and good soil. A vendor is sending me a shampoo ginger and a golden lotus banana as a trial for the quality of their products (a web co-op for a lot of small growers who can't justify the cost of having their own website and had been selling on ebay). They sent me an email about doing this and I decided to go ahead and help out these folks by writing an article after I receive the plants. I'm moving some of my own ginger and colocasia to the area and already have clumping bamboo and pineapple sage there. If I can squeeze it in, I'll add my brug to the space.

I have had stands in my front yard before. But the past few years the road has been noting but a dust bowl so I quit. Well now they came and tarred and stoned it, I will again try. Changes, 1 Make it portable, I have an old camper trailer bed I will build upon. 2 make it so my shevels out the front are on an angle so people can see what I have to sell. 3 Add lights, sometimes I like to keep the stand open untill dark, but then I have to shut it down in the dark. Also if I have electricity then I can put up some decoration using lites and the blow up scarecrow and such. 4 Keep it in sight of the house. Big mistake I made many years ago was to have it on the other side of the house. I lost money and cutomers because I wasn't able to keep things full. 5 Insulate, with the hot sun beating down on my old stand I couldn't keep and extras at the stand. 6 Make it easy to display other items, such as plants and fall decorations. I plan a stage, so I can Highlight new products or ones I need to push. 7 Look at others stands around you, ask the owners what they would do to improve. Also think about what you don't like about theirs. Good luck Tom

Interesting topic Wanda and thanks for the instructions on how to carve out a pillar. I've usually just let them burn enough to make a well to hold a real tealight then messed around with a knife but your way sounds much neater. :-) I burn real tealights, votives, tapers, then pillars in that order of frequency but tealights the most. I have a bazillion tealight holders (ys finds) and feel they are safer than tapers with the cats. I like the beeswax or soya the best altho have a lifetime supply of paraffin ones but mostly use them outdoors in the summer. Ikea has the best quality paraffin tealights for the lowest price IMO and sell in bags of 100 for about $3 on sale ($4-something regular) and I've also bot them at YS's for even less. I do have some battery ones I got a few years ago for the RV (for safety) but wasn't impressed with the appearance of the flame altho I've been told they have improved so should give them a try again. I like the idea of remote control pillars as I have the same accessibility problem on my mantel. I'd like to use them as there are convection currents because of the stove and my beeswax tapers dripped on the silk poinsettias at Christmas.