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Subject: Market Farming
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- From: KAKerby AT aol.com
- To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
- Subject: [Market-farming] a "hooray!" for farmers' markets
- Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 02:56:26 EDT
I imagine this is going to sound bizarre to some of you, but I just wanted
to shout a little "hooray!" that today marked my very first ever attendance as a
vendor at a farmer's market.
We have a lot of summertime markets here, which I've often thought of
selling at but never quite worked up the nerve. We had a CSA for a number
of years which I was very comfortable with, and which we're re-starting this
year. But the idea of packing up some arbitrary amount of produce, pricing
it according to some black-arts combination of fact, custom and intuition,
then driving to some other place and standing there for several hours hoping to
sell it was, well, intimidating. But this year we knew we wanted to have
that sales option. I was stewing about starting up new in any one of
our established markets. Then we got word of a new market starting up
super-early in the year, as an experiment in longer seasons for such
markets. It was on the campus of a nearby community college, and I figured
hey, it's a new market in a new area, so if I really screw up no one is likely
to notice (as much). So I said yea, I'll go.
The only items I had to sell were my ever-present chicken eggs along
with some early herbs; my mushrooms aren't even ready yet. I knew the
eggs would probably sell out but I had no idea how many herbs to take, or how to
present them. And I was worried what sort of "image" to portray there at
the community college. It's a blue-collar section of town so I didn't want
to sink huge amounts of $$ into a fine display, but I also wanted to look a few
steps above "redneck hillbilly's once-a-month trip into town". Which, I
hate to say it, is pretty close to how I look most days. So I packaged up
about 4oz of each herb variety into plain ziplocks, labeled them as
"samples", put them out in baskets on a table with a relatively simple
tablecloth and placemats as if inviting folks to join me for a meal, and then I
sat back to see what would happen. I even brought magazines just in case
no one wanted to talk to me (which I was pretty convinced would be the
case).
The eggs sold out within three hours, which was very gratifying since I
raised the price above what I had charged the CSA as recently as
2008. I fretted that price change until I had one guy come by and say
that wow, I had really good prices for eggs. OK, won't sweat that one
anymore. But the real surprise was that the herbs sold really well.
I sold about 75% of what I took. Customers seemed a decent mix of college
faculty/staff, students, and neighbors just walking through
campus. One gal stood there on her cellphone talking to her chef
husband about how many bags of which types of herb to get before I sold
out. The only thing she didn't take was chives because they grew their
own. Another gal grilled me on how far away our farm was and where
everything had been sourced. When I said I was less than five miles
away and all my plants had either been grown by me or sourced within the
county, she was thrilled. She explained she was a practicing
localvore who was deeply offended that some farms import their fresh produce
from other countries out of season. Ok, if she wants to spend her money on
me instead of those imports, I'm fine with that. Even my thyme sold out
which blew my mind. Thyme is just not the sexiest herb going, but
away it went this morning. But perhaps the most gratifying thing was that
the CSA signup sheets flew off the table. I think I brought 20 of the
signup sheets and I only brought five of them home. I know most of
those are destined to end up wadded up somewhere, but several folks were really
jazzed about the idea. Many of them had never heard of a CSA before (which
also blew my mind since SURELY everyone knows what a CSA is!)
So tonight I go to bed knowing that I can go back to market, goof
up on prices, display or whatever and still come out alive at the
end. And the better I get at gauging moods and juggling pricing and how
much to bring each day, the better my sales will be. Which is sort of the
normal recipe for life anyway, isn't it? So if anyone on the list has
agonized over whether to attend a market, I'd say go for it. Those fears
hiding under your proverbial bed shouldn't keep you from exploring this
option, if it makes sense on paper or if your heart really wants to try
it. If nothing else, you'll help teach one more person that food doesn't
just magically sprout on the shelves at Costco.
Kathryn Kerby
frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA
|
-
[Market-farming] a "hooray!" for farmers' markets,
KAKerby, 04/01/2010
-
[Market-farming] Need a source for Sweet Potato Plants,
Allan.Balliett, 04/01/2010
-
Re: [Market-farming] Need a source for Sweet Potato Plants,
Wiediger, Alison, 04/01/2010
- Re: [Market-farming] Need a source for Sweet Potato Plants, grizzdover, 04/01/2010
- Re: [Market-farming] Need a source for Sweet Potato Plants, Road's End Farm, 04/01/2010
-
Re: [Market-farming] Need a source for Sweet Potato Plants,
Wiediger, Alison, 04/01/2010
- Re: [Market-farming] a "hooray!" for farmers' markets, Richard Robinson, 04/01/2010
- Re: [Market-farming] a "hooray!" for farmers' markets, BarbaraJ, 04/01/2010
-
Re: [Market-farming] a "hooray!" for farmers' markets,
Road's End Farm, 04/03/2010
- Re: [Market-farming] a "hooray!" for farmers' markets, Ray Manley, 04/03/2010
-
[Market-farming] Need a source for Sweet Potato Plants,
Allan.Balliett, 04/01/2010
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