To avoid future trips to the picnic table, you might really want to look at building your own light box. Have you seen the Strobist site? You can find a ton of lighting education there, especially lighting with only one or two cheap flashes, and also instructions on how to make your own lightbox for almost nothing.
Anything you can do with sunlight, you can learn how to do in a studio. And having everything under control will make things much easier for you. Like everything else, there's a learning curve, but it's not hard and it's worthwhile if you're going to do this kind of product shooting a lot.
