On a sunny morning in mid-March, Resha Efird emerged from her home with a large tray of homemade sourdough bread to restock her farm stand, smiling as she greeted a neighbor seeking to buy a loaf. It was one of the busier Fridays in recent memory at the , which celebrates the end of each week by offering fresh-baked breads, both sweet and savory, for residents in Montrose to purchase.
Resha and her husband Lander Efird started their farm stand about two years ago to sell the excess eggs their chickens produced and to help pay for chicken feed. Offerings have since expanded to include homemade jams, dog treats, soaps and, of course, bread.
But unlike a farmers market with specific hours of operation, the Efirds’ farm stand at the end of their driveway never closes. Folks can stop by any time, paying for the goods by putting cash in a blue deposit box or with a digital transfer on Venmo.
Transactions rely solely on the honor system — and it works. The Efirds’ stand, which they promote on Facebook, has never been ransacked. Although they sometimes receive “IOUs” in the cash box, neighbors always return to settle up, the couple said.
“We’ve had people ask us, do you get taken advantage of?” said Lander. “I think if you trust people, they will rise to the occasion, so to speak.”
The Efird Family Homestead is hardly a one-off in rural Colorado. From the Eastern Plains to the Western Slope, the trust economy is alive and well among small-town farmers and cottage bakers looking to share the fruits of their labor through self-serve farm stands. These are not “pay what you can” operations, since products have designated prices. But for nearby residents, they provide access to fresh produce, eggs and other artisan goods at prices that rival grocery stores, and support local producers, whether they be professionals or hobbyists.
“My husband and I moved here about four years ago, and we love supporting all the agriculture and getting everything fresh,” said Montrose resident Jerri Beattie, as she perused the Efirds’ farm stand for sourdough.
Usually, Beattie comes for the $3-per-dozen eggs, which come in pastel colors like blue and green. They are so enticing, in fact, she couldn’t imagine seeing them available out in the open like this on the Front Range, where she used to live.
“It surprises me, it really surprises me,” Beattie said. “You just have to hope that there’s good people and they’re not going to just come and take stuff and not pay.”
While farm stands are not a new concept, they seem to be booming as more Coloradans place value on knowing where their food comes from, said Loleeta Pollard, another farm stand owner in Montrose.
She opened Pollards Apiary and Gifts last fall after acquiring nine ducks who live in her red barn and swim in the irrigation canals running along the edge of the yard. But the ducks lay more eggs than the Pollards can eat themselves.
“The people that get my duck eggs, they stop and look at the ducks, and they know where their food is coming from,” Loleeta said. “You can peek over the fence and see that those are my animals; they all look healthy.”
Pollard also has raspberry bushes she uses to make jams and vinegars, and as an avid baker, she sells homemade cookies, granola, spice blends, apple butter and Amish peanut butter, a delicacy she ate growing up in an Amish Mennonite community in South Carolina. During the summer, the farm stand is usually stocked with honey from her husband Dave’s hobby bee hives, and there’s also a Little Free Library so people can take a book to pair with their bites.
Pollards Apiary and Gifts now attracts a steady stream of regulars, all of whom pull into her personal driveway and either drop cash or use Venmo to shop. But the traffic doesn’t concern her. The only time the family has been looted was in 2025, when a bear came into the yard and upturned the beehives.
“I’m more afraid of the bear than I am afraid of any human,” Loleeta said.
Itap not just hobbyists who are leveraging the goodwill of their customers. Megan Atchley founded two years ago, taking online orders and selling baked goods at the farmers market in her hometown of Delta. After the market season ended in 2024, Atchley decided to build a bakery cart, inspired by others she saw on social media, and set it up in her driveway on select weekends.
Today, Knead Small Town Bakery has a loyal following of people who swing by the stand when they know it will be open with a plethora of cookies, cinnamon rolls, bread, bagels and more. Allowing payment via cash box and Venmo affords Atchley more free time to bake instead of being present to make sales. She has a camera visible in the cart, but attests she’s never had any issues.
“I have neighbor kids who will come by and knock on my door to ask for change. I’ve had them talk into the camera, and they show their money. They want me to know they aren’t stealing from me,” Atchley said. “Itap possible they’ve stolen one (confection) here and there, but the fact they seem to go out of their way to visibly show me money and stuff, I’ve never felt fear about it.”
For commercial farmers Jami and Chuck English, stationing an honor box at their pick-your-own pumpkin patch each fall was a logistics decision. As the proprietors of , they operate a farm stand in downtown Montrose from April through October. Up until a decade ago, they would haul gourds back and forth from the field to the stand, and back again, to sell every day.
“We were giving our pumpkins frequent flyer miles,” Chuck said with a laugh.
When they decided to transition to a you-pick format, it didn’t make financial sense to keep the pumpkin patch staffed all day, Jami said. Instead, they installed a cash collection box on a fence where people could leave $5 per pumpkin after wandering the fields and finding their favorites.
Part of why Jami thinks the honor system works is because locals like to know their farmers and see where the produce is grown, both of which effectively take the anonymity out of the shopping experience.
“(People) respect the aspect that we are working the land and we’re doing it for them. I think thatap one reason why people are more honest about it versus when they go into City Market and steal a candy bar when they have $100 in their pocket,” she said.
Thatap not to say there haven’t been hints that bad actors have come through. Chuck once found several hair combs in the cash box that he deduces someone used to try and fish out dollar bills. He and Jami also once had a couple of teenagers steal pumpkins from their personal residence while they were both standing in the driveway.
For the most part, though, the community has done right by Honey Acre Farms. Thank you notes outpace hair combs, Chuck said, and there haven’t been enough pumpkins to go missing that itap impacted business.
“The way we see it is if they need a $5 pumpkin, a $5 pumpkin isn’t gonna break us, you know,” Chuck said. “If you need one that bad, come on up and I’ll give you two of ‘em.”
The Pollards echoed that sentiment. Loleeta doesn’t keep inventory of her goods anymore because it took the fun out of having the hobby stand. All the proceeds from Venmo go toward buying baking ingredients so she can continue making treats for the community, and she stows the cash away in a jar marked for the family’s vacation fund.
“We thought about putting out a sign that said ‘Please don’t steal. If you’re hungry, just knock and we’ll feed you,’” Dave said.
Perhaps thatap the small town ethos or an example of karma in action. But at a time when it seems like the news cycle is dominated by negativity and the country feels increasingly divided, Loleeta said watching the honor system at work has even helped shape her personal outlook — for the better.
“I have told my kids, you see what you focus on,” she said. “Every day I see people do the honor system and it works, and so in my mind people are trustworthy.”
How to find honor system farm stands in Colorado
Colorado does not maintain a registry of cottage bakers, hobby farmers or commercial producers that sell their goods at farm stands operated on the honor system. A bill currently being considered in the Colorado Legislature, , would build one by requiring cottage food producers to register with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. But until that passes, your best bet is to scour Facebook and keep your eyes peeled as you drive through the Colorado countryside. Another option is using a community-curated map of Western Slope farm stands available at . We recommend pulling over when you see a farm stand on the side of the road, because who doesn’t love a taste of adventure?
Reporter Tiney Ricciardi is also building a Google Map of farm stands, which you can access .
