Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Yield Estimates

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost AT gilanet.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Yield Estimates
  • Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 11:00:09 -0700


Some very useful insights in these replies to your inquiry, Matt, esp on
sharer preferences. I'd add that some beginning customer problems with
quantities can be avoided by waiting to start the CSA system, and simply
recruit regular customers to begin with. Regulars can be found when you sell
at a simple market stand. Have them leave contact information by email or
snail mail, or phone. With enough regulars you can do without the market
stand. Flexibility is the key. You keep in touch so they know what's
available in season, and how much. Matt, did the market in Concho ever take
off, and have you checked out Father John's market in St. Johns? We took our
finest tasting tomatoes to St. John's last summer and found them flooded
recently with tasteless donated tomatoes from some chemical drenched
hydroponic place, so they never even tasted ours. Our regulars here at home
keep demanding more though, and remote as we are we have only the most
grateful customers. You wouldn't expect cowboys to rave over tomatoes.
Whatever works! But then we are in salsa country ;-)

paul, tradingpost AT riseup.net
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Soilmakers/
---------------
The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not
television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only
those who know the most about it can appreciate how little we know about it.
- Aldo Leopold in Round River, 1933
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 12/12/2005 at 12:25 PM David Inglis wrote:

>Detailed planning is great but to start out you need to get as close as
>possible then double it. Especially for the crops that are cheap to
>grow. What is essential for a beginning CSA is having too much food to
>choose from so you have enough to be able to choose the best. There is
>no such thing as just the right amount, only too much and too little and
>I know which of those you would prefer. The planning goal should be to
>reduce the amount you throw away, or not harvest, as harvesting is
>typically a third to half your costs. But, it is a good thing to 'waste'
>some food.
>
>This initial plan wont be very useful but will become increasingly
>useful as you adjust it based on actual yields and sharer preference. We
>adjust based on the past seven years of yields per row foot by
>discounting the top and bottom yielding years or any yield we know was
>an aberration. This is the important part of the planning and I highly
>recommend you stick with the process until you are getting meaningful
>figures because you will be tempted to abandon the planning when things
>are out of wack. To purchase an effective computer planning aid go to:
>http://www.brookfieldfarm.org/
>
>The other factor you will need to find a way of systematically
>incorporating into the plan is sharer preferences. This is much more
>difficult if you are filling boxes rather than offering free choice as
>we do but you have to find a way of getting accurate feedback. When we
>switched from allocated shares to free choice in '98 our planning had
>got to the point that we had to make only two changes to the row feet of
>crops: less cabbage and more beets, lots more beets which I never would
>have guessed. This crop also pointed out one difficulty of allocated
>shares because when we surveyed each year many wanted more beets and
>many wanted none. The only way to please one group was to alienate the
>other. With free choice the beet people get beets and the others don't.
>Unfortunately free choice only appears to work at the farm site. I would
>like to know of examples of free choice working at a drop off site, and
>how.
>
>It is hard to assess your numbers not knowing your conditions and
>growing regime but some of them look optimistic for continuous weekly
>figures.
>
>All the best.
>
>David
>
>Mahaiwe Harvst C.S.A.
>
>W.Mass
>
>Z5
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
>[mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Matt
>Cheselka
>Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 10:39 AM
>To: Market Farming
>Subject: [Market-farming] Yield Estimates
>
>






Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page