Market Farming

[Willie McKemie <mf AT austinfarm.org>]

On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 07:30:06PM -0600, TxBeeFarmer wrote:
> Location?  Sorry about that.  I live just north of Big Spring or 40 miles
> north east of Midland/Odessa.  We get PLENTY of sunshine!  Just no rain.

That would be about 1000 hours?  More?

> 
> Willie, you have 20 rows or so of blackberries?  That brings up another
> question.  I just have way too many other things going on to do a lot of
> picking.  I might be able to keep up with two rows, but 20, no way.  How do
> you pick yours?

I sell as many as I can PYO, but that doesn't amount to much; a few 
hundred gallons.  I use several, maybe as many as 10, pickers.  We pick 
berries every morning; sometimes the pick runs into the afternoon.  
Most of the berries are sold in pints to grocery stores.  I am pretty 
comfortable dealing with 40-60 gallons a day; peak picks run 100-150 
gallons.  

This past year, we went for about two weeks picking a lot more berries 
than we were selling.  I got about 200 gallons frozen and eventually 
made into jelly.  We had good Christmas sales on the jelly and I'm 
looking forward to being out by May and ready to do it again.

I haven't sold many via this website, but it will show you the jelly:
http://www.austinfarm.org/homegrown/mailorder.html

-- 
Willie, ONWARD!  Through the fog!
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