Vegetables to Go
Seventeen-year-old David Ward raises his gaze to watch a semi-tractor-trailer as it passes by his vegetable stand on Highway 240. The tent over him and the table of produce provide some shelter from the sun, but the summer heat still wafts through.
The produce Ward sells is grown on his grandfather’s farm in Miami, Mo.
“It’s something to do,” he says of the work. The stand gets business from commuters on Highway 240. Steven Kirk of Hartsburg stopped to buy some corn on his way home from New Franklin.
“I saw sweet corn and thought I’d be a good husband and bring some back for my wife,” he said.
The stand also sells tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, watermelons, potatoes, yellow squash, onions and bell peppers.
The region of Slater was hit by major flooding this past spring, damaging some farmers’ crops. Ward says if the water had been just a few inches higher, their farm would have suffered as well. This is Ward’s second week at the stand this summer, which he says will be open until mid-August.