The Flower Auction

Kalona, IA is a Mennonite (Amish) settlement just 25 minutes from our house. This place is quickly becoming one of my favorite places to visit for food storage items, fresh produce, and a fun atmosphere. Visiting on Mondays is especially fun because it is laundry day. I don't know why it is so funny to me to see laundry out on lines blowing in the wind, but you have to admit-- it is kind of funny to see people hanging out their underwear for all to see.

Anyway, yesterday I went with a couple of friends to the Frytown Produce Auction run by Yoder Auction Services. We had a great time and got some really nice flowers. I forgot my camera, so took some pictures of our goods when we got home.

To give you an idea of this experience, here's what we did. We went to fairly large warehouse where they have tons of flats/pots/baskets/boxes of plants, vegetable starts, flowers, and produce on display for the auction. The auctioneer moves around the warehouse auctioning these things off in bulk. When we got there, they were auctioning off hanging baskets in sets of 8 to 16 starting at $5 each. We discovered, you kind of have to know what you're doing (which we didn't), but we figured it out OK. Going with friends helps because you can split up what you buy and you don't end up with 30 geraniums (which is nice when you buy them for a buck each, but . . . well, you know).

Anyway, we had tons of fun and got some beautiful flowers. I got 3 nice big pots for my front porch along with 6 other pots of flowers. Makayla is standing by most of what we got (minus about 12 sunflowers that my friend "accidentally" bought).

After dividing things up, these are what I ended up "buying" Now, I just have to find some nice pots for my geraniums.

I found out this place changes from plants to produce in June (until October), so I'm planning on going there to get canning peaches and pears when they're in season.

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