Happy Tuesday: The Georgia Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin arrives today

Autumn beauty at Sprewell Bluffs State Park in Georgia

Tuesday is my favorite day to stick my hand into the mailbox because this is the day my Georgia Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin arrives. As soon as I pull it out of the box, I rush inside to brew a cup of tea and read and think and plan. Whatever else I was doing just has to wait.

For more than four decades, this humble--and best of all, free-- advertising tabloid has been my unfailing source of cheap plants and even cheaper reading entertainment. In it gardeners place free classified ads for flower, vegetable and herb seeds or actual trees, shrubs and bulbs, but the purchase of gardening goodies is only half the fun. Think of the Market Bulletin, as fans call it, as the first social networking site for gardeners—the pre-Internet version founded in 1917.

Tiny classified ads are packed with personal interest stories if you read between the lines: the elderly person no longer able to cope with invasive ivy or bamboo or wild roses offers to give them away to anyone willing to dig; the nostalgic gardener looking for a beloved plant from childhood begs readers to share; the octogenarian who believes someone else out there also remembers the perfect tea cookies his grandmother fed him urgently seeks the recipe for his own grandchildren; or, the retirees selling seedlings and trees gleefully confess when called that the tree income pays their property taxes each year.

The typical Market Bulletin price for seeds is $1 per tablespoon plus a stamped, self-addressed envelope. In 1991, the first day lilies I ever bought cost me only $10 for 13 plants. (The baker’s dozen is a familiar offer in the Market Bulletin. These friendly gardeners love giving extra value.) We drove a few miles to get the day lilies, but the seller not only dug them up for us, she gave us a quick lesson on how to succeed with them—and succeed we did. Out of those 13 plants my daughter and I have grown hundreds and I have given more bulbs away than I can count.

Sometimes Market Bulletin advertisers even give things away, such as the four-o’clock seeds I got one year. It is not uncommon at all to see offers of free plants. These are typically the invasive types such as wild roses or English ivy, but it could be anything. One year I sent off a stamped self-addressed envelope and got free touch-me-not seeds, which brings up another point: Sometimes plants that are no longer being sold in garden stores are still going strong in the Market Bulletin.

One of the delights of dealing with the Market Bulletin advertisers is that they are mostly generous and helpful and somewhat old-fashioned individuals. Most are selling seeds and plants because they love gardening and want to help others. They’ll give detailed advice if a buyer asks. Many of the advertisers are elderly. (I know because I have talked to dozens of them and, if they are over 80, they will consistently tell their age; I guess they’ve earned bragging rights.) Sometimes advertisers offer free plants because their property has become overrun and they are grateful to have some of the bounty hauled away, but others use the classifieds as a way to socialize. As phone numbers are included with all listings, elderly readers will call an advertiser to talk gardening even when they are not interested in buying anything. Perhaps some advertisers would find this irksome, but to me it’s just fun. The advertisers are always delightful and wonderfully knowledgeable. If they don’t have the plant a gardener wants, they’ll offer help in tracking down who might.

There’s even a section for subscribers who want to find certain plants or old-fashioned goods. I’ve never advertised there, but given the helpfulness of the readership, I’m sure it works. I did at one time have a letter published in the “Helping One Another” section of the Market Bulletin. There I requested old-fashioned recipes and I got many, many letters and good recipes from that. Another time I made a request for simple living tips for my Creative Downscaling newsletter and got 64 phone calls from people wanting to help.

But, hands down, the best value in the Market Bulletin is the free fertilizer. Be it horse, chicken or cow manure that quickens the gardener’s pulse in anticipation of future fertile fields, the good 'ol Market Bulletin has it. Of course, what they don’t tell you is that free weeds come with it, too, but then no product is perfect, is it?

Copyright 2008 by Edith Flowers Kilgo. All rights reserved. Text and photograph may be used only with prior permission and with attribution.