The end of August means that the apple guys are spending the weekend sitting in their truck at the Kenny’s Drug parking lot selling apples by the peck. I bought an apple crate of Isle La Mont’s yesterday with the intent of making sauce and pie. 22.00 for the bushel. Wow. Dozen canning jars, with lids were 11.50. The sugar was a couple of bucks. Cinnamon is in the cupboard as is the rest of the secret ingredients.
I think apples have gone up, or at least it seems like it. So even with 12 jars of sauce, we are looking at 2-3 bucks a jar. It used to be economical to put up fruits and veggies. Go to any Big Lots and there always is apple sauce at .99 cents a jar. I am a little bummed about this.
I bet ya that the guys who are selling the apples are bummed about it too. There is a trend in Vermont to use migrant workers, sometimes Mexicans and sometimes Jamaicans, to pick the apples. Why? Economics and frankly, not enough kids that will do the work on the cheep. Same for milking. Not enough of a labor pool to do the work for the amount of funds that can be allocated to do the work.
The cost of producing the food and getting it to the table is going up. I don’t mind having to shift my money from one area, like buying new clothes to food, especially if I can support my local farms. So at farmer’s market I bought 5 tomatoes, a stalk of celery, a head of lettuce, 3 small red onions, 3 small green peppers all for $15.40. 4 Amish Peaches, 4 long stem gladiolas and a coconut macaroon cake from the Mennonites, for $12.65. A little over 50.00 bucks for the produce, not counting the canning jars.
At 10.00 a hour working on the farm, that is 5 hours for not that much. I guess I could take the flowers and the coconut macaroon cake out of the deal saving 9 bucks or just under an hour, but how sad.
So what are the folks that try to make a living on minimum wage doing? Vermont’s minimum wage is $7.68. I guess that is a couple of tomatoes and a peck of apples. Are they able to support farmer’s market or are they doing the Big Lots generic apple sauce and damaged box of mac n’ cheese?
