LOUDON, Tenn. — Rather than fighting traffic at the supermarket - both for parking and a mad dash inside for the produce - there’s nothing like being able to slip out of work and around the corner to buy part of one’s dinner on the way to the car.

From June 1 through the end of August, every Thursday evening from 5 to 7, vegetables, flowers and baked-goods vendors take over a little dogleg of College Avenue that forks off Highway 11, west of the Tennessee River into Loudon. Across from a high fountain at the pie-shaped corner of Grove Street, local entrepreneurs set up makeshift shops out of the backs of their trucks and vans for the weekly Loudon Farmers’ Market.

“Even in case of rain, we sell,” said Valerie Rogers, owner of nearby antique shop The General Store. “We’ve yet not to find a spot for a vendor.”

Which, admittedly, is a challenge since that block of College Ave. isn’t long. Farmers and other vendors pull diagonally to the curb, put up a table behind their vehicles and, according to Rogers, immediately start taking in dollar bills hand over fist.

Susan Reynolds of Fountain City, nearly 40 miles distant, is a portrait of success with her homemade fried pies (the closest analogy for a non-Southerner is an individually-wrapped Hostess fruit pie), baked fresh each Thursday morning around fillings of cherry, peach or apple. She and granddaughter Amber Armstrong, 14, prepare, wrap in wax paper and hawk the treats.

Except there’s not much hawking at this point - the desserts do all but walk up to passersby and sell themselves.

“These pies are talked about,” said Reynolds’ daughter, Kristi, who staffed the van two weeks ago while her mom worked overtime at a Knoxville hospital. “Everyone who has walked by has said, ‘I’ll be back!’”

And they usually are. Reynolds said she sells out of 120 to 150 pies within 45 minutes. Between those and her jams, she reported she and Amber earn upwards of $125 a week after expenses.

It’s not unusual for any of the vendors to sell out in the two hours each week, in one or all goods. There are usually between six and 12 vehicles set up, selling mostly fresh produce - tomatoes, pole green beans, onions, potatoes and squash. Like Reynolds, a couple of others sell baked goods or canned preserves. One lady sells hanging plants.

Most of what sells is baked or grown by the vendors. Walter and Shirley DeVault moved to Loudon two years ago from Ohio. They live on small acreage, so they buy their beans, green onions and red potatoes from a local farmer to resell. From slightly further away, Walter buys Grainger County-grown tomatoes.

“You don’t make that much profit, but the good thing is, you meet people,” Walter, who also sells the rest of the week in and around Loudon, explained.

He estimated he moves, on average, between 50 to 75 pounds of tomatoes each day, as well as 25 pounds of potatoes, and less of his other items. He aims for a profit of 40 to 50 percent, and said he’s out hustling seven days a week. “You take a day off, it’s a day lost,” he philosophized.

Prices at the farmers’ market are comparable to what nearby Knoxville supermarkets are charging; sometimes they’re better. Certainly it’s difficult to find a pound of pole beans at Kroger or Food City for a dollar, or a zucchini or yellow squash for a quarter, as Loudon resident Bill Shaver charges.

Shaver brings a pickup truck bed full of boxes containing these to market each Thursday, as well as tomatoes, corn and okra in season. He grows everything himself and estimated he goes home with $75 to $100 each week, which isn’t bad for a retired shop owner.

The office of Lynn Mills, interim city manager for Loudon, is about two blocks from College Ave. After a long day, he likes to pause by the market before heading home for fresh tomatoes and beans. And fried pies?

“No, I won’t touch those,” he’s swift (perhaps a little too quick) to deny. “You get started on those, you just don’t quit; those will work on your waistline.”

This farm news was published in the July 5, 2006 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee.