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  • From: Krystle <learning AT selfmadefarmer.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Why do It II
  • Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:36:32 -0700

If your farm business is meeting your goals, then that's all that matters, in the end.

The main reason I see for seeking enough profitability to earn an hourly rate as an owner, as well as to hire employees, is that it adds long-term stability to the operation. If the owner is doing all the work for a low hourly rate, what happens if the owner has an injury, or must leave town for a family emergency? Or just to visit grandchildren, even? Can the owner find someone else to step in? If not, this presents a big quality of life issue for some folks, especially as people get older and face more health issues, want health insurance, and want to be able to hand someone else the reins once in a while. That only becomes possible, I think, on a larger scale (from what I've seen and researched so far).

Krystle
Salem, OR
http://www.selfmadefarmer.wordpress.com

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 7:20 PM, Harriet Allen <hattie_allen AT yahoo.com> wrote:
I really don't think it has much to do with scale of operations.  I'm not in the black yet, but I'm building a heck of a customer base and making significantly more money every year.  This is the beginning of my fourth year.  I have made lots of mistakes and some horrible ones.  I think it is about choosing what to grow, how to present it, (post harvest), where and who to sell it to and how much to sell it for.  And about value-added concepts.
 
I deliver to a customer base I am building up mostly from farmers market customers.  Once the farmers market is over in late September, I go into delivery mode.  I grow things that come to harvest quickly and that people want to buy....Arugula, mesclun, spinach, small turnips, leeks, and GREENS for cooking in the winter like Kale, mustards, etc.  I deliver eggs and mushrooms along with this for a couple of other guys who needed an "offseason" outlet.
 
I put out my weekly email and then harvest and prep stuff on Thursdays and Fridays for delivery on Saturday morning early.  (I do about 30 deliveries in 3 hours by telling people I can't stop to chat...then I get to know them more at the market each summer.)  I charge a delivery fee of $3 and take a 20% cut from the eggs and mushrooms.  I sell everything I can at retail and barely do any wholesale at all.
 
Everything like mesclun and arugula is triple washed, spun dried and bagged and refrigerated and will literally last weeks that way. 
 
In the spring as I'm growing and buying my own plants and plugs, I set some aside and sell to my customers.  And I grow a few other things for sale.  I offer plants through email early in the season and then have plenty of bedding plants when the market opens.  Mostly herbs and especially basil, parsley, etc.  I create some oval herb planters and just some pots with lots of basil in them.  And usually something interesting and new every year.
 
I'm very small, so I really choose what types of vegetables to grow.  Instead of green beans, I grow Haricot Verts and have never had enough to last more than an hour at market at $5 a pound.  Good tasting heirloom tomatoes are essential as are samples.  EARLY anything will mean you can get a better price.  I don't worry about my tomatoes in August.  I worry about them in July.  In August I worry about my arugula.  Can I grow it under shade cloth without bugs by covering it?  When I do, I sell every drop....and no one has it but me.
 
Carrots?  Hard to grow, but a fall grown carrot is delicious around here and in incredible demand.  Maybe I have to limit the amount per customer, but it means I get an order and that I also sell my mesclun, maybe some eggs and mushrooms.
 
Peas?  Another tough one...Lots of picking, but they are in extremely high demand.  No one else will go to the trouble in Zone 7.
 
My delivery area is within a small radius of three towns and I put about 50 or 60 miles on the car to do that route.  My Saturday summer market is close (only 8 miles away).  I grow lots of cut flowers too for just the market now and one country store where I consign them and usually sell most of them getting my 70% commission.  (I was losing money trying to also sell to the florists who wouldn't buy enough of what I had when I had it).  I know I can sell up to about $200 worth of bouquets per Saturday and that is what I aim for.  I grow what other people don't and try to grow it nicely.  I pay attention to quality above all.
 
Last winter I started to offer workshops on gardening.  I was flooded with people who wanted to take the workshop and ran two of them that each met three times.  I charged $100 each person and had 14 participants in Feb and early March.  Next time I'll charge more since the classroom time was a total of nearly 9 hours, plus handouts,etc.
 
I do not advertise and I have more customers than I can supply.  A good problem to have.  Now I'm just working out my planting schedule and invested in a walk-behind tractor to help with the labor.  I do this alone with part time help of about 10 hours per week.  I'm going to make it work...But you have to be gritty and determined as hell and remember to do some yoga....This is very, very hard work as you all know.  I am currently gardening on only half an acre with a 50 foot long hoophouse.
 
I have put in a couple hundred feet of asparagus and the same amount of blackberries to supplement things.  My front flower beds are sporting rosemary, lavender and peppermint grows on one side of the house while I have mohito mint from Cuba growing on the other side.  Sage, thmye, savory, tarragon, oregano etc. etc. are tucked here and there.  I don't waste my time cutting herbs I can't sell.  I sell them only by order.  I send out an email before market and ask my customers if they want something like that on Saturday and I'll bring it for them.  But basil, oh basil...That I sell by the bunch...I put it in a flower sleeve and I take a lot of time making sure my basil plants are producing nicely.  I get $3 a bunch for a quarter pound bunch. (I carry the flower sleeves on my belt and pick right into the sleeve..)
 
I grossed about $35,000 last year.  I think I'm about half way to making a living...that is, being able to pay my bills and have enough to live on.  That is all I want or expect.  As for hourly rate?  The owner doesn't get to make one.  I do the work that I can't afford to pay anyone else to do.  Weeding for instance...I won't pay someone to weed a row of something I'm only going to make a few bucks on.  I get to do that and smile while I do it.
 
It was beautiful outside today and I remembered why I'm doing what I'm doing.  I'm outside, my hands are in the earth, I'm bone tired at the end of the day and I love living this way.  I get to research, read, teach, lecture about sustainability, experiment, buy seeds, try new things (In the offseason of course).
 
Right now, there is not enough time in the day...But we do this because there is nothing else that we can do or have done that makes any sense.
 
 

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