Sam and Mary Gail Leming have closed their “honor garden” because of Sam Leming’s failing health. In years past the Buda area couple’s two-acre garden yielded thousands of pounds of tomatoes and bushels of other vegetables. (Photo by Wes Ferguson)
by WES FERGUSON
For the past four or five years, at the little produce stand on Oxbow Trail in Buda, the only thing missing was the vendor.
There were bushels of plump tomatoes plucked the day before, freshly shelled black-eyed peas and country bouquets of snapdragons, larkspurs and other flowers. Most mornings, the big fight came down to the okra. Customers who came early would snatch up every green pod before any of their neighbors could beat them to it.
But only occasionally did those customers come across the owners, Sam and Mary Gail Leming.
Even though the Lemings lived in the house behind the produce stand, they rarely interrupted the people who were shopping in their front yard. After the customers had chosen what they wanted, they weighed it themselves and dropped their money into a metal contraption marked “Money Box: Need change? Come to house.”
The produce stand operated on the honor system, because the Lemings believed their neighbors were honest and wouldn’t take advantage of them. Usually the neighbors proved them right.
“It made the customers feel good,” Mary Gail said. “He trusts me, and I’ll live up to that. The people were wonderful. I can tell you, they treated us right.”
Sadly, though, the produce stand is no more. Sam and Mary Gail have called it quits. They’ve stacked up the tomato cages, parked the tractor and cleaned out the greenhouse. Sam’s still wearing his trademark blue jumpsuit, but that’s about it.
“I don’t mind telling you,” Sam said, “I hated like hell giving it up. I still do.”
He had no choice, really.
The Lemings, both 74 years old, had been raising and selling produce and flowers for 17 years. In their heyday Sam was growing as many as a thousand tomato plants and other veggies on their two acres, and he and Mary Gail would show up at various farmers markets with 500 or 600 pounds of tomatoes. They’d often sell out within three hours.
“It was a booger,” Sam said.
The venture had begun much smaller, though, when Sam retired and began to maintain a backyard plot on their property in Buda. Mary Gail was his field hand. Before long they were planting every scrap of ground that received enough sunlight.
“It got bigger and bigger and it just got out of hand, so we started going to farmers markets,” he said. “The last four or five years we sold out here in the front yard on the honor system.”
Customers would park on the road or at the end of the Lemings’ driveway and sift through the morning’s harvest, which Sam and Mary Gail laid out on a table by the street. In four or five years, only twice did thieves steal the Lemings’ daily profits. The couple earned far more in produce sales than they lost from theft. In fact, the farming venture was more lucrative than many people might have guessed.
“Okay,” Sam said, “I’ll go ahead and tell you: Whatever profits we made we spent on travel.”
Over the years Sam and Mary Gail visited 10 or 11 countries in Europe, as well as Egypt, Turkey, the Holy Land and Canada. “It was a double bang,” Sam said. “We got one bang from raising the produce. It was fun. Then you take a trip, and you have fun again.”
Last year, the couple spent their 50th wedding anniversary in Venice, Italy. In Venice, though, Mary Gail had noticed a change in her husband.
“Sam was kind of dragging,” she said. “He was. When we came home we went to the doctor, and he said Sam’s heart valve is played out, and he’ll have to have it replaced.
“That was our last trip, and I don’t know if we’ll be taking any more.”
Sam had surgery on July 28. Five months later, he was asked if he’d been feeling any better.
“I’ll be 75 come spring,” Sam replied. “I’ll show you a hundred fellows who are my age. Most of ‘em will be dead. A lot of them will be in wheelchairs.”
Compared to those fellows, he seemed to imply, Sam had been doing pretty well. He has gone ahead and plowed up a corner of his backyard, where onions are already growing, and he’ll raise a little squash, a few tomatoes, maybe a panful of green beans.
Nothing fancy, a typical backyard garden. The days of commercial harvests are behind him.
“It’s too hard on us at our age,” Mary Gail said. “Sam will really hate it, but I don’t think it’s wise for him. But we’ll find something to do.”
When the interview had concluded and it was time for pictures, Mary Gail ran inside, put on a nice collared shirt and applied a fresh coat of red lipstick. Her husband was wearing his blue jumpsuit. Mary Gail insisted that he spruce up a bit, as well.
“Sam, go put your teeth in,” she told him. “Get in there and put your teeth in.”
Sam complied.
