Time to reopen the Little Shop at the end of the garden!

The little shop is having a sale on courgettes & DFB. Also there is a steady supply of tomatoes at the moment with new varieties being added all the time. The shop has had a few unusual specials in. Whit has been very nice. Apparently carrots, onions and potatoes are due to arrive any day now. Shop keeper is telling me about all his plans for expansion and that he’s hired the help of a genius to help with the design of some elements. He’s very excited & frustrated all at the same time. He was going to go into more details but luckily another customer came in , needing help. So I will no doubt find out more. Next time I go in.

This little shop has been closed for much of 2024 because of unreliable deliveries. Its so disappointing because its my closest shop and I used to pop in for a few items every day. According to the shopkeeper, there's very little hope of stocks improving in the near future. He's thinking of diversifying over winter and selling microgreens which may be less dependent on the usual suppliers. I hope so.

Our shopkeeper needs to sort out his priorities and knuckle down to getting supplies delivered in sequence rather than all at once. Although he's never succeeded in this yet, so I don't think there's much hope in the future. He's had some fine produce in during the last few weeks but apologised for the lack of courgettes due to a supplier's chemical disaster. Cucumbers & tomatos of varying sizes and colours are flying of the shelves, he reckons this month's profit will be down to just those two veg with the broccoli coming up a close second. He say a grower was complaining about the insect invasion on this year's crop of chard is proving difficult to control but hopes when the colder weather commences this might be remedied. In the meantime chard is in short supply. Not that it matters really there's plenty of other veg on the shelves.

My little shop is looking healthy, plenty of kale, chard, toms, cucs, courgettes, charlottes, herbs and not forgetting assorted lettuce.

French beans will be a while due to a slug invasion.

My shop keeper was a bit upset today. My fault as I was moaning about how little he had on the shelves.
"How can you say that? Just look around you, there's watercress, kale, spring onions, tomatoes, rocket, three cornered leek and new season lovage. You moan about commercial food waste but you don't do what you can to reduce the food waste in your own Little Shop. Eat local".
He really put me in my place and I have promised to give him more of my custom in the future so that his efforts in stocking the shelves are worthwhile.

I've been chatting to the shopkeeper today - he's still a bit grumpy! He told me that this year he's not stocking all that "fancy stuff" as nobody wants to buy it. I'm not sure what he considers to be "fancy" apart from aubergines, as he said that if I wanted "aubergines and other fancy stuff" I'd have to go to one of those supermarkets that stock all sorts of fruit and veg at exorbitant prices because its grown abroad and has to be imported.
"You won't find any imported muck on my shelves, its all locally grown, seasonal and organic.....and sold at a fair price."
There's not much on offer at the moment apart from the salad leaves which he has been selling throughout the winter, with fresh supplies daily. No complaints from me about that.
He was a bit uncertain about when new stock would be for sale. He thought rhubarb might be coming in soon so that's something to look forward to.

The little shop is unsurprisingly still under construction. But progress has definitely been made. The shop keeper is very upbeat about the coming seasonal stock. Fingers crossed it works out as hoped. The shop keeper is expecting a bigger selection of produce this year. Not just run of the mill varieties either. He’s also hoping for a half decent selection of cut flowers later in the year. It all sounds wonderful. But the current stock is less than impressive. A small selection of herbs & microgreens. Rhubarb & asparagus come soon in small quantities. I hope the shop keeper proofs me wrong. At the moment I’m not sure I share his optimism.

Not sure what my storekeepers  been doing    there's only herbs, kale, chard, land cress and a bit of lettuce, even the frozen produce is running low. 
 
There's still plenty of jams and chutneys, so I won't sack him just yet.

My shop keeper is building the foundations and walls of growing veg, quite literally! The beds are taking shape, but it has been very slow going. Ruddy work taking up too much time. My shop keeper might as well be on holiday!

The little shop here had a grand reopening yesterday. The shopkeeper apologised for being closed recently due to family disturbances of one sort or another. He says he hopes, as the season progresses, to improve matters. I managed to get some rhubarb and some curly kale. He did say the kale should be used fairly quickly as his supply seems to be going to flower. The rhubarb was imported from a neighbouring shop but he vouched for its quality. As far as future stocks are concerned he promised the usual old faithfuls, courgettes, bean, corn, chard and onions with the addition of a new item elephant garlic. He said he was invaded by mice at the moment, eating some of the young stock but has taken measures to prevent future incursions. He hopes to have strawberries later on but is also battling pest invasions. He held his head in his hands and bemoaned the fact that nature always seems to be working against him. He gave me a bunch of daffodils because he likes me.