Off To The Market

I pulled out of our farm at 6:oo on Saturday accompanied by the sounds of bluegrass emanating from our local independent radio station WNMF 88.5 "Always at the extreme left on the radio" as one of their DJs likes to say. You can take this both literally and figuratively. It seemed somewhat fitting to go off to the market with an older type of folk music playing. I know that it is commonplace for some to go with their wares to the local market, but it felt refreshingly new and I felt somewhat nostalgic for a bygone era as I headed down the road in pitch blackness. The weather was great all day about 70 F and a little overcast so it was not too hot. I only had curly mustard greens, which were cut the night before, washed, bundled, and put on ice in a cooler. The other item was Hamlin oranges, which were also washed, and placed in an old wash tub. They looked awesome. Our oranges look great this time of year with a little chill to change the color and raise the sugar levels. They really sparkle with a little wash. To fill in the booth space I brought a truckload of plants from the nursery side of our operation. Everyone liked our booth display and I passed out all of the business cards I had from the interest in our plants. I sold all the oranges and eventually sold out the remaining mustard to The Corner Store, which is our first customer for our produce. I had numerous people tell me that our produce prices were too low. One woman who was snowbirding from New England stood there in disbelief and kept repeating the phrase, "Twelve oranges for $1.00?" I kept saying that was correct. She bought a dozen. I even had the other organic grower come over and tell me that my prices on the greens were too low. She was selling her bunches for $2.00 and mine were $1.25. She sold out and I had the majority of mine left before The Corner Store bought me out. Go figure! Jenn told me she thought our prices were too low. I am going to let her set the prices from now on. I also realized that people really couldn't buy landscape plants at the market. People can’t walk around with a seven-gallon shrub that they impulse bought to place in their landscape. I need to work on our product mix! Maybe some vegetable or annual transplants for the spring might work better, or some small "Wow" plants.
I did learn a lesson about value added products. The Corner Store was juicing our oranges and putting them in a cup and selling it for about four times the amount I sold them for. Another gentleman was selling organic jams and jellies he made the night before. He set up in about 20 minutes, had one table, had about as much value in the space as I did, and he almost sold out. He was selling his jars for $5.00. I was selling plants that took me three to four months to grow for $2.00. I had to deal with all the weather, the water, insects, and diseases. I will start thinking hard about value added products. We did cut up the oranges for people to try them. That was Jenn’s idea. It certainly helped us make some sales. Some people would start walking away from our booth with an orange slice and then come back and purchase some. If you have any other ideas for marketing or value-added products for the market you are welcome to share it with us and others on this blog.

My father bought us an action-hoe or loop hoe the kind that looks like a stirrup. I used it to weed in the trial garden. I love it. Thanks Dad! You didn’t have to do that, but I really appreciated it.

I added a little fertilizer to the beds to help them grow out of the freeze damage. Half of our tomatoes died in the transplant flat. I think that it was too high a salt content in my liquid fertilizer. I checked the salt level with a meter I have and it was off the charts. This week I diluted it down by 5 parts water. I kept thinking that the seedling lettuce looked much better than expected with a one time feed with a liquid fertilizer. They were probably right on the border of death with extreme fertilizer. Note to self: Always check the salt level of new batches of liquid nutrients. This was a very valuable week in terms of the volume of knowledge we have gained!