In the middle of a workday, Lauren Schwab can step away from her kitchen table, walk out the back door and into her garden.
From there, she’ll check rows of tomatoes and other vegetables, often harvesting what’s ripe to restock her roadside produce stand before heading back inside to her remote tech job.
“I just take breaks and go out to the field whenever I need to grab some things, restock,” Schwab said. “A lot of the times it's at night, I'm out there in the garden picking things to get ready for the next day too.”
Schwab owns Farm Fresh Produce, a small stand just outside her Bay City home. She also sells her goods at the Dockside Market at H2O’s, a waterfront market that draws local vendors and visitors.
From a few leftovers to a growing business
It started as a simple idea: put out leftover produce from her garden that she and her husband didn’t plan to eat.
But customers kept stopping by, and kept coming back. When she began selling out, Schwab expanded her garden the following year, and then again this season.
She now offers fresh vegetables, homemade jam and loaves of sourdough bread made with a starter more than 90 years old, which she discovered during five years of work travel to nine different states.
“I just prep everything, and then I sit at my kitchen table, and I bake and I work,” she said. “So, it's just a little bit of refining that time management and also attention span.”
Schwab’s ties to farming run deeper than her backyard. At 15, she worked on a local produce farm, learning skills she still uses today.
A familiar face at the market
Dockside Market organizer Alicia Faulk-Horton said she knew she wanted Schwab to join after reading her vendor application.
“When I saw that she was a home grower, I knew immediately that I wanted to chat with her and get her down at my market,” Faulk-Horton said.
Faulk-Horton described Schwab as reliable, friendly and engaging with customers. She said Schwab’s contributions go beyond her booth, like the time she stepped in to provide music for the entire market.
“She brought the best tunes that were for every generation, Gen Z all the way to the boomers. Everybody loved it,” Faulk-Horton said. “We joke that she’s forever our DJ now.”
Food with a personal connection
For Schwab, the most rewarding part of running her stand isn’t the income, it’s what the food means to people.
“That's what I remember from growing up is my grandma baking, and making different various things for us,” Schwab said. “And not only does it taste better, but it is better for you because it doesn't have all the preservatives and things in it.”
That perspective deepened after Schwab was diagnosed in 2024 with stage four melanoma. She says working in the garden helps her stay active, focused and positive while growing nutrient-rich food to support her health.
Her experience has also shaped her outlook on the local food scene.
“We would love the competition because it means that there's more local produce in the area,” she said. “And I think the more of that we have, honestly, the better.”
Schwab says she’s not planning major expansions for Farm Fresh Produce right now, but she intends to keep selling both at her stand and the market, balancing her tech job with the work she loves in the garden.
And for customers who stop by, she hopes they leave with more than just fresh produce.
“I just encourage anybody else that's thinking about it to do it,” she said. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s really rewarding.”
