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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Market Growing
  • Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2010 10:10:31 -0700


There's snow on the ground and freezing wind so I have time to write about
market growing. This is mainly about things books and extension "experts"
don't cover. I can tell what works for us and others have to figure what
works for them where they are. Market growing large or small (us) is a whole
different ball game from growing for home use. Some don't like to call it a
business but if you don't treat it as a business you won't be in business
long.

We don't normally sell greens, tho we may grow some baby beets for greens
and/or arugula this season. Cooked beet greens are a delicacy for me (with a
dash of balsamic!), better than chard definitely. Sell some cooking greens,
maybe. Salad greens are labor intensive as you know, and cheap in the store,
and we just don't do salads. Transplanting and harvesting greens constantly
may be ok if you have plenty of cheap help. I garden alone. Plus any
leftovers to take home would go bad before next market. We don't have a lot
of extra refrigeration space. I like Eliot Coleman's accounting system of net
per square foot.

Few sources explain about growing what sells for the best return on
investment. So our strategies in general are:
1. grow what brings a good net for the labor and time in bed space,
2. plan to have a wide variety of produce constantly thru the season (harder
than it sounds), to make it worth the time at markets,
3. grow mostly things that will keep and don't have to be harvested
constantly (winter squash, shallots, garlic, onions) plus root crops to
harvest as they sell (no waste), and
4. grow mostly better varieties of things people normally buy, rather than
exotics that take up bed space and won't sell much.

Instead of ordinary potatoes, onions and red beets we do Yukon Gold, red
candy onions, and golden beets, carrots strictly Scarlet Nantes. Snap beans
are the large flat yellow Marvel of Venice and green Romano. Butternut &
Delicata sell well for winter squash. Tomatoes & peppers we talked about. And
we don't offer just one thing. Local honey or free range eggs is great, but
if that's it then you have nothing else for the vast majority of customers.
We make mistakes along the way, but we've learned to mostly limit our produce
to things that fit all those constraints.

There's good standard tips on websites for effective selling, but also we
find it helps enormously to stand up, smile at everybody, be proud of what
you grow, and offer samples and tips on cooking your items (Barb is great on
this, me not so much). Heat chard in a little olive oil, only till it's limp,
no more. It's amazing how many people ask what can you do with squash. They
can't talk to the store. All this draws customers when they can get things
cheaper in the store. Bingo. It's called relationship marketing.

We suspect some growers never figure whether they're breaking even. Their
large unripe beefsteak tomatoes don't sell enough. Leeks have a limited
market. Everybody else has zuchinni. And what sells can vary greatly from one
area to the next, even within cities. Demographics. You have to watch what's
selling and then compete on quality. Undercutting is worse than a skunk in
church - if they want cheap the store has it. Cheap stuff does not help the
market - it helps China-Mart. Better, fresher produce grown right (and other
local agriculture products) is the main reason people show up in the first
place.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net






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