Truck Farm

[woodbutcher]

That was a common expression in east Texas when people gardened on a scale large enough to provide produce for other families. We had a truck patch and an orchard during my high school years and later, too.

Butch

 

[Davidj]

Around here in the frozen north, we call it a market garden, or market gardeners.

 

[sotxbill]

could be... a place where trucks are planted and grown... or a place will trucks go to die.... or yes.. a vegetable farm.

 

[BillinCentralMO]

Aunt and Uncle called theirs , the truck patch .

 

[caterpillar guy]

I still hear the term used around MI in different areas for vegetable growers.

 

[Johnnypopper]

I am familiar with the term. I would say the term was quite popular here in Michigan in the 60s and 70s.

 

[JohnRowehl]

Have to laugh. I grew up on a farm in an area where potatoes went from the harvester into ( or in earlier days onto) trucks and crates of cabbage and cauliflower were loaded onto trucks that went through alleyways through the field. I never knew the term truck farming until I saw it in some old text book that showed a map of regions of the country where the predominant types of farming took place. (Hey, lookie there! I grew up on a truck farm!)

 

[Steven Allen]

Worked on one in grad school. Haven't heard the phrase used in years, but I don't spend time in circles where it might be.

[i:2b8b38681b]Truck[/i:2b8b38681b] has had a full range of meanings in English. Two hundred years ago, it referred to small, miscellaneous items, often but not always food. At first glance, it appears to parallel somewhat the British English phrase "small deer" but without the close association with food items.