Howell Man allows community to 'self-serve' his vegetables

By Abby Welsh Livingston Daily Press & Argus HOWELL, Mich. (AP) - Every day starting at 5 a.m., Ron Howard gets out of bed, eats his breakfast and walks out the front door to his 3-acre farm. He starts to think about what he needs to do for his vegetables that day, the Livingston Daily Press & Argus reported. "You have to do things before the sun (comes up) and after the sun goes down," said Howard. "Like, you can't water plants after 4 p.m. because the sun starts to go away. They have to be completely dry by that time or they will get fungus growing on it." He digs every single hole, plants every single seed and picks every single weed by hand. You will find no machines in Howard's farm. "You can't leave the garden and farm unkempt for three days or you will lose everything you've worked so hard for," Howard said of Ron's Home Grown Vegetables. "You will never get it back again." What started as a fun hobby has grown into a full-time business for Howard, who has a stand in front of his home that is open 24/7 in Howell. He bought the 41-acre land in 1966, and started growing and selling produce around 1980. "I started helping my grandmother harvest her crops when I was a child. I rediscovered my passion for growing produce years later," Howard said. His farm has an 8-foot-high fence surrounding it to keep the deer away. He sells a variety of jalapenos, peppers, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, squash, onions and watermelons each year. But you won't find Howard sitting out by his stand like most vendors. Instead, he puts all his trust in the hands of the customers who stop by to shop. "Self-serving" is what he calls it. A small shed encompasses a camera and a small peephole for people to put their money in, and in front of the shed sits three wooden tables that hold all the vegetables with bags and plastic baskets. "You simply can't maintain the work of the farm and also sit and sell the produce to the customers," he said. "I used to have my young neighbor sit out and do it years ago, but unfortunately no one wants to work for $2 an hour anymore. This system has worked for us for many years now." Howard and his wife tried sitting by the stand all day long for one year and decided they would "never again" do that. Howard ventures out to the stand every couple of hours to check the moneybox, monitor the camera and reload the tables of produce. He said he doesn't like to keep more than $20 there at a time. "There are just some really great people in this area, and I've met some great people doing this," he said. "There's that 1 percent of people who are bad and will steal, but it's not often." Unfortunately for Howard, a few years ago that "1 percent" stole from his stand. A man broke into the shed and stole some money and continuously took vegetables from the stand without paying. "Police can't do anything about the money he stole. ... If it's not over $1,000, they really can't do much and I'm not going to make a big deal over $10," Howard explained about the only time someone stole from him. "But the police were able to do something about him trying to break in and enter the shed." The camera Howard has set up in the shed has a microchip he can access on a computer to view the photos. "So people could smash the camera and I can still see the footage from the chip," Howard said. "But like I said, there are great people here and it's not often we have to deal with that." Kathy Giles of Howell is one of Howard's loyal customers who stops by his stand three to four times a week. "If I don't stop by, I'm calling my husband to stop by on his way home from work," Giles laughed. "It our little secret." Giles is among many customers Howard looks forward to seeing. "It's a great place to stop and get what you need for dinner," Giles said. "I don't have to go all the way to the store, and I like to support community stands like this." Howard still has several types of vegetables to put out because the season has just begun. His stand is usually open from July through September. "I want to try and put out pumpkins, but they get eaten by the deer, so I don't usually have a lot of those," he said. "It's worth it though." Howard's stand has been open for a few weeks now, so he will continue to wake up at 5 a.m. and go straight to his 3-acre farm to maintain the crops. "I've been doing this for so long I'm not sure what I would do if I stopped," he said. Published: Wed, Aug 19, 2015