HI! I got a lovely email that this thread had been retrieved so I'm here to give an update! Actually, I've been so consumed with this project that I haven't even been to the forum. The store is going to open October 1!!!!! It's called "Southern Seasons" and it's in Shelbyville, TX. I actually got my LLC with Moo's Garden & Market but I found that I had to spell and explain too much with this name. Plus I kept getting mail addressed to Moose Gardens (?) I found Southern Seasons explained that concept much better. If someone will post the "code" on how to paste a picture I'll be happy to show you the progress. It's quite a transformation! It has been my passion to make this store THE store that I would want to shop at. It must have everything that I find enjoyable in a store. I think I might have done it, for the most part. First of all, we are all about the seasons. When we open in October I'm having a half a semi load of pumpkins delivered for sale and display. Their premium pumpkins from West Texas in all sizes shapes and colors. These bear NO resemblance to your Wal Mart or grocery store pumpkins. There is big and tiny, red and white and blue and orange, tall and fat and even some with warts! My husband and I bundled up corn shocks from our garden for decoration, I'm going to Louisiana for a load of barley and wheat straw bales. We'll have mums and snapdraggons, panseys, and fall garden veggie plants. The day after Thanksgiving, all the Fall stuff goes to the cows to enjoy and in comes the Fraser Firs from North Carolina. I'm getting table top sizes for my older customers who find large trees too much to deal with. Then comes spring with hanging baskets and beddding plants, fountains and bird baths, feeders, wind chimes, sun catchers etc. Back to October- Inside the store is seperated into two sections which I lovingly call womans world/man's world. The theme of the whole store is based on entertaining at home. Whether it's a formal dinner party, backyard cookout, or a cozy evening at home alone, I have what you need! - Let me explain! The ladies side will greet you when you walk in with a huge centerpiece of fresh cut flowers (which are for sale) and often times a fruit and vegetable centerpiece like a pomegranate and lemon topiary or such. I also carry Colonial Candles, and sachets and poporri from Sentations, candle sticks & georgeous table runners. Wine, iced tea, rocks, shot, martini glasses, pitchers, stirrers, decanters, swizzle sticks both silly and classic. Trays to carry your cup and saucer, the BEST music CD's ranging from jazz to love songs, books from Southern Lady publishing on entertaining and tabletops and flowers. Magazines also like Southern Lady, Taste of the South (Not taste of home) Victoria and Tea Time. On the counter you will find fresh muffins, cookies, croissants, cupcakes, fruitcakes, pies and bagles. Fresh hot coffee (perhaps cappaccino, I'm working on that) and you can take your coffee and muffin and go out on the back deck (20x24) and enjoy your coffee looking at the gardens and reading a magazine or newspaper. There will be a nice fountain and seasonal decor, of course. I want people to LOVE to be here! Man's world has Salty snacks like Real Virginia peanuts both in a can and in the shell, fresh fruits and vegetables grown localy and in from the Texas Rio Grand Valley, glass bottled cokes, the real can sugar Dr. Pepper from Dublin, TX. Deer corn and fall plot mixes. A meat counter with actual USDA PRIME BEEF! Yes, it's pricey but it's so difficult to find that I decided we MUST carry it for those who want something special. We'll have delicious smoked link sausage by the pound, and other food items that I'm still working on. I'm sure there's so much that I'm forgetting! It's a lot especially when you see that the store is so tiny but it will be loaded to the rafters which is what I wanted! Also, different yes, but I will NOT decorate for Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving! This gives you a reason to come back often to see what is new with the decor and centerpieces and foods. Thank you all for your interest and please come and see me when we get open! It's going to be nothing if not interesting. I've got to go paint....again! Love, Moo!

I think my question is pretty clear: You have offered your place for sale to some potential farmer. You have not named a price, said how many acres, soil type, water resources, etc. You have said a rental income of 32k justifies buying your place and trying to make a living farming it. There is no way to know that without knowing at least the answers to the questions above. In most parts of the eastern US the market value of land makes trying to "make a living" by selling farm produce is an impossibility. It's all fine if one bought the place years ago when it was much less valuable in relative terms, and/or paid off the mortgage if there was one by doing some occupation much more remunerative than farming, or most workable of all, inherited the land. Buying land these days, most places, to live by farming is not feasible. The result will be a big loss of time/labor and any money invested.

Marquisa, My husband, myself and our two kids opened up a roadside stand last year for the first time. We took over by grandmother's 2 acre garden and took advantage of the good location and opened a stand on the edge of the road during the summer and stayed open until Halloween. We were open weekends and then in the fall we were open full time for 3 weeks during fall harvest. We used a big metal mailbox attached to a 12 foot wood table for when we were gone (as we don't live there but a few miles away. We left produce out with and signs for pricing and the honour system was kept. Our phone # is listed on a sign so people could contact us right away if needed. We would check it everyday and restock produce during the week and be open on Saturday and Sunday 8:00 to 5:00. I also sold vegetables directly to friends, members at my sister's health club, co-workers....all because of word of mouth and letting people know what I had. I ran off a produce list and made posters up and posted them on every bulletin board I could find. I listed all the varieties of vege's we had and when they were available. Our stand consisted of the big tent(awning)I purchased from WalMart for $30 that we placed two table under and then placed various other tables and other containers around the awning. You need some kind of protection from the sun as some vegetables will wilt and shrink quickly if left out. We thought we would sell more vegetables than we did...late July was slow at the stand but I sold a lot to my other buyers. My neighbor daughter runs a mexican restaurant and she purchased the majority of my peppers and onions after I gave her a flat of various vege's to use. Some of my best customers were the ones I gave them a new variety of squash or vegetable to try and they would come back out and bring a friend or family member. Summer crops that sold include red and white potatoes....red being the top seller. We sold by the pound and had the small potatoes already bagged. We sold white, purple and yellow onions 3 for $1.00 or a flat crate of them for $3.00. Tomatoes were late this year and so the majority of our crop we started selling late in August. I sold so many to my coworkers and neighbors I usually didn't have a large supply on hand. Top seller was Celebrity and the cherry or Sweet 100 varieties. The zucchini were tricky and had to be protected from the sun after they were picked. Tip:The eightball variety gets too large very quickly so you need to keep this picked everyday. Come fall we had 9 varieties of squash and around 17 variety of pumpkins and we sold around 800 pumpkins and 450 squash in our stand. I also sold broomcorn, field sorghum, indian corn, popcorn and ornamental gourds. The broomcorn was a huge hit with the local ladies for fall decoration and was so easy to grow....I would sell it for either $3.00 or $5.00, depending on how big of bundle they wanted. We sold out broomcorn in early November. It was very profitable and we had lots of fun running the stand and meeting new people. As to your questions, I can help with a few suggestions... " Is there a formula or "best guess" as to how much of which vegetable we should produce for our potential customer base? Vegetables can be tricky,in the sense of knowing what will sell and what won't. We grew cucumbers, zucchini (both Fordham and Eight-Ball varieties), tomatoes(14 different varieties), onions, squash, peppers (bell peppers, jalapeno, chili, and hot peppers). The cucumbers and zucchini has to be sold more quickly and protected by the sun. I would pickle or freeze the extra or leftovers. Grow varieties of vegetables you will enjoy to eat or can process and keep for later time. Don't go overboard on peppers or tomatoes until you know you can get rid of them. For you if you have limited space look for bush varieties of vegetables to plant. You can interplant some varieties...find a new farmer's almanac and it will help you figure out what varieties of vegetables can be grown with each other or with flower varieties. "What proportion of your garden would you dedicate to cut flowers and how much to vegetables?" We were going to have cut flowers at our stand and we planted large zinnias, cosmos , sunflowers and marigold on the edge of the vegetable garden...we went to the farmer's market and found that their was lots of competition. We sold some flowers at our stand on weekends in August... we placed big vases or buckets full of different flowers and sold then for $3 or $4 per bundle. It was a pain and not our main seller...once we started selling broom corn I gave up on selling fresh flowers. Plant what you can grow easily, know you can rid of(sell, give away, freeze, or can) and grow what you will make the most profit on. Our best and most profitable was small ornamental gourds. I had wagons full of them and sold them for 5 for a dollar. I planted 4 packets of mixed ornamental gourds and ran them up fences to save space. We sold a large supply of potatoes and squash in the fall. Many varieties of squash come in bush variety so they don't vine out as much. " When is the peak time for sales? In the morning or evening when people are coming home from work?" Saturday mornings were always good and late Sunday mornings(after church would let out) we got quite a few regulars back. I always opened up at 8:00 in the morning and my regulars would rely on it. On weekdays I would check the lock box and work in garden for a couple hours and be available at stand and we got quite a few people to stop on their way home from work. Best advice I can give you is.. Have a nice and full looking display. Clean your vegetables, have sacks and hand them out or have large supply of them(I used old grocery sacks or bought small brown sacks at Walmart). Keep your product display full and and colorful. Also know your product..the more you know about variety, ways to cook it or process the better...I kept my favorite recipes on a recipe run off sheet and would hand them out to regulars. Use signs on the side of the road and tie balloons to your mailbox or to fence posts on weekends. Many people would see balloons and think our stand was a garage sale and would slow down long enough to catch interest to what we were selling. I wish you the best of luck .... we had a wonderful time with our stand and look for forward to this upcoming summer and fall. email me if you have any other questions.... Sue from Hawk Valley Garden Dickens, Iowa

Have you considered taking a "care package" of your fresh picked veggies to some of the chefs at the nicer restaurants in your area? Alice Waters of Chez Panisse has arrangements with local farmers to purchase what they grow. If you have unusual items, it might be worth your while to give this a try and cut down the number of days you have to set up and break down your stand. A link that might be useful: The Food Revolution of Alice Waters' Chez Panisse www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9848900