Small Mobile Farm Stand Design
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I have wanted a little roadside farmstand for a few years now! Back when we first bought our house in 2019, I really wanted to replace our grass with a meadow of native flowers and sell fresh bouquets! However, that idea was scrapped when our grass grew to an unmanageable height and the packets of seeds I spread only produced a handful of flowers. However, the original idea of the farmstand stuck with me, and I’ve thought about it every year since. Every year, there was always something preventing me from doing it. “I don’t have enough flowers.” “The produce from my garden is not pretty enough.” “Our hens don’t lay enough eggs.”, etc.
This summer though, we visited the Finger Lakes region in New York, and there were farmstands everywhere! They were all so cute and unique, and I came home ready to open my own!
I knew that if I waited for everything to be perfect, I would never do it, so I just did it!
We have only had the farmstand open for a few weeks now, but we love it! Ours does not make a ton of cash, but it’s an excellent way to break even on chicken feed and sell extra produce that we won’t use.
The design for our stand is very simple. I contemplated building a more permanent structure for a while and even drew up the plans and made a materials list, BUT the mobility is a must-have for us as egg production will likely go down in the winter months and we won’t have flowers or veggies to sell. The mobility allows us to just pull the whole thing away for winter storage. The design also uses very little lumber and was SUPER easy to build! It’s also perfect for a cooler, which we needed to keep eggs and veggies cool.
We used all scrap material and spare hardware for this build. The only thing I purchased was the cash box, and I’ve linked a very similar one here: https://amzn.to/3L14y6I
This design can be modified very easily based on what you have available to you, your skill set, and your personal preferences! My hope is that this post just gives you the inspiration you need to start your own!
The Design:
We used a small mower trailer as the base of our design. You can buy these at your local hardware or feed store for between $130-$250. However, you can also likely find them for sale used in your area for much cheaper. They are often listed on Facebook Marketplace in my area. Ours was a given to us by my parents, and it might be as old as I am. Before it was a farmstand, we used it for all sorts of projects! And if we need it again for another project (like moving large amounts of dirt or woodchips), all we have to do is lift the frame out of the trailer.
We built a frame using 2x2s to sit down in the trailer. We used recycled tin for the roof, and I added a small shelf for produce. On one side, I added an additional piece of wood to secure the cash box. The only tools I used for this job were a circular saw, drill, and metal shears to cut the tin. I attached our sign to the top of the frame so that it can be read from the road.
To prop the trailer up and keep it level, I used a few bricks on the front, and a few cinder blocks under the rear of the trailer. When we want to move the farm stand, I simply pull the bricks and cinder blocks out and set them down in the trailer before moving the whole thing with our lawn mower.
We keep a cooler set down inside the trailer for produce and eggs. I simply taped our prices and a little bit of information about eggs to the top of the cooler.
Tips and Tricks:
Signage is very important. We have two additional signs in addition to the pricing taped to our cooler.
Our roadside signs are individual fence panels painted with the items that we sell: eggs, organic veg, flowers, and fruit. I attached eyes and hooks to each sign so that they can be easily removed and rearranged. So when we don’t have fruit to sell, I simply do not hang that panel. These signs also have the added bonus of looking very cute in my opinion.
After a week of being open, we quickly realized we needed an open/closed sign. It’s not realistic for us to keep it stocked every single day, especially because the eggs need to be kept cool. So when it’s open (usually Fridays through Sundays), we flip the sign to say open, and when it’s closed, we flip it to say closed. It doesn’t get any easier than that. We chose this method over posting hours to allow more flexibility on our end (like if we go out of town for a few days).
And that’s it! This design is about as simple as it gets! It took me an afternoon to build it and get set up, and would take all of 5 minutes to move and disassemble! There are MUCH nicer and prettier designs out there, but this one is simple, mobile, affordable, and doable! I also happen to think it’s really cute.
