Produce Auction

Here at Coupon SAHM I Am we might be a bit more frugal than lets say "most" people, So we might do some SAHM things, like for example buy 120 lb of apples for $15, yep we thought that was a good deal!

We were able to to go a produce auction in Elma Iowa, (North East Iowa, 1.5 hours away from Iowa Falls.) I was all about getting apples and pumpkins and maybe some mums. We came home with all three, very lucky!


As this was the first time we have ever gone to an auction before, I was a bit worried about getting to much of one thing and having no idea what to do with all of it. They sell majority of big lots, meaning bins of pumpkins like the ones you would see in a grocery store (I was not interested in that many pumpkins, I am not running a farmer's market stand ) So once they got done with all of the big lots they moved onto the smaller lots that had like 3 bushels of apples instead of like 3 dozen bushels of apples. (yeah I don't see us doing much with that many apples.) Things were selling fast and cheap, for example, 6- 10 inch potted mums, $11 for all 6! bushels of Potatoes $4, Raspberries, 4 Pints $8 (raspberries are in season?) Squash, $2 a bushel. I got my Johnathan apples for $5 a bushel. The nice thing about the auction was that the auctioneer was able to work with the bidders, a lot of times they would try to auction off three of the bushels, like in my case, but if you didn't want all three you could say I only want 2 and then they would sell the other one to some one else, however I was on a mission for apples and thought I want all three man! yummo!

This place is actually fairly kid friendly, most of the customers were retired and maybe local, (they loved seeing  our kiddos!) However there were buyers that had bought their big lots and were loading up their stuff, but once the big lots were done it was just a small group of us traveling around each of the small lots to bid. I also that this place is kid friendly because it's clean, has a small cafe (we got a huge cup of ice cream for $1.50) my little girl loved looking at all the produce, and the horses.


 I plan on going again in the spring, May or June to get strawberries and other spring type produce, and then once in the summer, and again in the Autumn.

For more information go to their website here