If you have plans or drawings for your farm stands, material lists, or ideas on how to create a farm stand from a recycled materials, please submit your ideas to urbanFarmStands AT gmail.com.
Here are some of the plans I created to create the Los Altos Hills Farm Stand. For this stand, we started with this recycle lettuce table we acquired that was about 7 feet long, 3 feet side and about 36 inches high. We added 2x recycle lumber decking for the table top, added recycled 6 to 7 foot – 4×4 posts and 1x2x8 to connect to a metal coragated roof with some 2x4s. The only materials we purchased was the roofing materials. We used a recycled cabinet for the lending library.
Photo of LAH Farm Stand – We made several signs from recycled/reused plywood that we painted chalk board paint onto with borders made of recycled wood. One feature that I picked up from Farm stands in Canada was this idea of an integrated cooler. We cut a hole into the table and inserted a cooler where we can put fresher vegetables with a re-useable frozen cooler ice packet. This keeps produce fresher longer and keeps critters from accessing the produce. In this photo we have one cooler installed.
The whole farm stand can be dis-assembled into a few larger pieces to be moved in about 15 minutes with some easy to remove screws with a cordless screw driver.
LAH Community Farm Stand II – Designed and deployed June 2019
This design is very similar to the Community Farm Stand #1 but we designed the stand with a few more careful design details and requirements.
The most important being that we wanted to access the stand and books/shelves from the back and sides as it was to be located on a larger, flat area which worked for accessing the back of the stand. This access in the back required that the roof sloping down from the front couldn’t be too low where persons would bump the low hanging room.
We also made the stand exactly 8 feet long to make it easier to work with standard lumber. Much of the table decking and other joists were made from a recycle play structure that was taken down and recycled from 2×6 and 2×4 redwood lumber.
We kept many of the flexible features of the first stand and made chalk boards with plywood and chalk board paint on the front and a few places around the stand. We also crafted several hanging signs that can be cascaded off each other to show what is available at the stand. What is available at the stand changes seasonally and what neighbors plant from year to year.
The basic dimensions of the stand are
- 7 feet 4×4 posts in the front, 6.5 feet 4×4 posts in the back
- 32 inch wide table
- table 8 feet long
- table 36 inches high (top of deck)
- 4×4 posts 5 feet apart, 1.5 feet of space at either side of posts
- 1 integrated cooler
- book shelves made out of pine and stained and sealed
- Roof joists are 2x4x 6 feet RW
- Roof boards are 2x2x 8
- Metal roofing 24 x 6 feet (4 pieces)
Here are some of the design drawings for the second farm stand:
We changed a few of the designs details as we were building it.
Other farm stands on Islands in Canada
Here is an another example of an simple integrated cooler design.
This design was build from a old desk with an added roof piece added
This farm stand was made with some cart device and a cover. Notice the seedlings for sale!
This stand has a cooler below and something to keep critters and bugs out of the top area with screening.
This farm stand was truly a community farm stand and offer items from several neighboring houses. Each family had their own cooler filled with items such as carrots, potatoes, etc.
Urban Farm Stands 