Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

I am sure we have foodies in Ireland as well but not really in any numbers within a hundred mile radius from us. To get to such towns you need to use the Irish road system and that is a bit sub par. Used to get visits from my in-laws (from Belgium) but after the FIL killed his second BMW here in one of the uncountable potholes he gave up coming.

 

Locally the farmers markets are a dismal scene with most producers taking almost everything back home with them at the end of a long day and that counts for vegetables, jams and baked goods. It is very hard to compete with supermarket prices.

And that is not all. The native Irish have moved a long way from natural food. And there is a realistic danger of being sued for huge compensation should you sell a head of lettuce that has one small slug hiding between the leaves.

 

It is no big problem for us. Whatever vegetable we can't eat ourselves helps to feed the life stock.

John

Apparently you have producer & consumer prices going opposite directions. Hey, same here. Which is why we have to sell direct to eaters, & go for the better informed clientele, foodies if possible.

They seem to gang up on us for the early greens, esp kales promoted on some cooking shows. We can't do well competing with lots of low value chiles, summer squash, cukes etc. Things that grow easily with a tractor/tiller, chemicals, & cheap labor. However a Delicata winter squash goes for a good price. Had one customer run up asking for Delicata, said she saw it on Facebook ?? - found out the market camera gal shot one & stuck it on the market's Facebook page.  Anyway we're forced to pick our markets carefully & try to tailor growing for expected demand. Ahh, the tricky part :-(  .  The selling is when I get good help from the expert who grew up cooking Italian since she was big enough to reach the kitchen counter. I remember the 2 ladies both trying to buy the last box of Italian tomatoes, & they agreed to split it.

It seems too many growers think of it all as just produce, whereas customers are thinking Food To Eat for supper. And they don't consider selecting varieties for flavor - to be Food - to give people a reason to spend their money on them & not somewhere else. Give 'em varieties & taste they can't get at a supermarket. This is what we've learned, & have to keep relearning.

On 3/27/2014 3:43 PM, John D'hondt wrote:

Agree completely.

And to tell the truth I really don't know how much food prices have been rising here Paul since we buy very little food. What I do know is that a 40 kilo lamb that I produced in 1987 made about 30% more than the one I produced in 2007. Not counting inflation.

 

Food prices have definitely been dropping for the producer if maybe not for the final consumer. And that goes almost completely for everything. A ton of non organic potatoes last year cost about half of what it would have made 25 years ago.

 

And in the big supermarket chains there are often price wars going on. Recently you could buy one kilo of carrots, one kilo of Brussels sprouts and one pine apple for a grand total of 35 euro cents in one of them. And stunts like this go on almost weekly. The producer pays.

John

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