Postby chattymama » Mon Feb 03, 2014 10:36 am
I'll second/third this.
Mick the lovely grocer has been on that patch for FIFTY YEARS (he started when he was just nine, with his dad), and works seriously punishing hours (unlike many London grocers, who send someone else to 'pick' their veg, he does it all himself, which often means being up until midnight, then up at the crack of dawn to drive over from essex to set up).
Not only is his stuff MUCH cheaper than the supermarket (though I agree if it's massively out of season you should just sample a bit, then go back another day for more), and there's hardly ever a queue Mon-Fri, he will:
a) let you take tiny amounts of things - eg. a tiny handful of runner beans for your little one, or a small bunch of coriander for a stir-fry... so your stuff stays fresh.
b) tell you if anything is unusually expensive (eg. when all the cauliflower crops had been ruined by the freak weather last year) - he won't just let you blithely stick it in your basket without warning you. You don't get THAT from a supermarket....