The best price I can get for my suns (pro cut series) is eith $1.00 per stem or 5 stems for $4.00 Pre bunched with aboout a 20" stem. People don't seem to want to carry the extremely long stems thru the market. I don't sell straight bunches of zinnias so I can't help you there. Good luck. Heidi

Rita, I don't sell any more, but the one thing that held through all eight years I sold was that people preferred bunches of mixed colors of sunflowers to all-the-same bunches. Both sold, but the mixed sold better.

I never had enough zinnias to sell in bunches. Growing them here is an uphill battle - I've grown them but only in small amounts.

Good luck at market!

Jeanne

Rita
I get $7 for sunflowers and $6.50 for zinnias at the
farmers market.
Bud

Thanks to those who posted,
Jeanne, I have to agree with you, I think the mixed suns sell well too. Zinnias I havn't tried yet but tomorrow will be my first go at it with bunches of zinnias.Well I'm off to bed so I can get up early

Rita

Rita,
I was wondering how market went with "Growers Bunches" of zinnias. We've seen prices somewhere between the ones mentioned by Heidi and Bud. Bud's are actually a good average. We do sell bunches of zinnias; however, not as many as previous years. Currently, we're harvesting right around 5,000 sunflower stems per week. Actually, we can get between $8 and $9 if we put something in the middle of the bunch.

One of our markets is in a lake community where people from Chicago and Detroit summer. The other market is in a metropolitan area that caters to professional people who are executives, college professors, etc. We've found that mixed sunflowers don't sell well. These folks want the traditional looking sunflowers such as those featured in House is Beautiful magazine, etc. We're finding these people are painting their interiors bright, bright colors such as yellow, lime green and tomato orange. Mixed bunches of fall color sunflowers sell better later in the season when vendors are selling goards, Indian corn, and other fall items. We don't sell any of the multi-branching.

This week we're harvesting about 100 buckets of lisianthus out of the high tunnel. Anyway, that's what it looks to be right about now. I have 50 so far. It looks like I've made somewhat of a dent. With our heat index of 108 degrees, the lisianthus is out of control. We can get 70 stems per bucket. These flowers fetch around $1 per stem. We're using alot of this in our European Hand-Tied Bouquets at market.

As far as straight bunches, we're also currently selling alot of mini-glads and sword lilies.

Hope you had a great market day last Saturday.

Trish

Trish,
Zinnia bunches didn't sell too good. I sold some but for the price, my customers wanted the mixed bouquets. My multi colored suns sold out. This last Saturday was one of the weakest so far. I sold out except for a few bunches of zinnias maybe 4 were left and a couple of purple majesty millet. Everythig else I brought I sold. There are not very many vegetables at the market right now because of the heat and we had alot of rain a couple of weeks ago and they said it really hurt the vegetable growers. That effects the number of people that come to market.
I wish someday I could see your place. I can't imagine picking that many sunflowers and being able to sell them all. You must have some kind of markets you go to. I think the one I sell at has potential but how do you get the word out there to get more folks to come. I have people that live in the neighborhood and it's there first time to see it and it's been open for over 2 years every wed & sat and they didn't even know about it. The market and the folks that run it are strictly volunteers with little funds. Any ideas on how to advertise and spend very little money? I would like to do something myself to help because in the long run it would help all the vendors but what? This market is in the middle of Houston, Tx where there is tons of people.

Rita

Rita - good questions...to your original ones...last year I sold tall, excellent stems for $1 a piece and mixed bunches of shorter, smaller heads of 10 for $7.50. I think this year I'm going to sell singles for $1.25 and mixed bunches for $8.50 and see how it goes, my suns are just kicking in, so haven't had enough to test it yet...

Zinnias will be $7.50 a bunch of 15-20 stems, depending on size!

Marketing...our market uses weekly advertising, all the free internet sites we can find, sandwich boards at major intersections, and the paper does put us in the "happenings" section. Our board is volunteer too, and its a big job, even with paid market managers.

Good luck!
Wendy

Wendy,
Is a sandwich board one of those white and red signs that you rent that you put the letters in the layers of slots that are on wheels?
Rita

Rita - our boards (all alike, except for the arrows and heavy so they don't blow over in our wind) are plywood, with hinges, nicely painted by a vendor who traded her time for booth space! We have quite a few and it's the manager's job to get them placed either late Friday or very early on Sat. mornings!

Our market's website isn't very good - we don't have a volunteer web designer, but there are others in Oregon that are great...the link is below...you might check to see if your state has a market association that can provide you with resources!

Here is a link that might be useful: Oregon Markets

Dear Rita,

For free advertising, see if your local paper or even outlying papers will do a feature article in the paper the day before your market is held. Also see if any local radio stations or public television stations will do a public service announcement. See if any organizations or colleges have newsletters with calendars where the farmer's market dates and hours can be listed. Have someone make up some flyers for your market and have each vendor at the market put up the flyers in their neighborhood or pass them out to friends, co-workers and neighbors.

Here are some places a farmer's market can be listed. Did you say what state you are located in? Some states have their own listings.
National Association of Farmer's Markets
USDA List - Link below
Farmer's Market On Line
Local Harvest
Open Air Market

Linda

Here is a link that might be useful: USDA Farmer's Market List

I'm new to this game as well, and sell at a morning market in a cottager community. Very little competition - one other lady who sells some growers bunches and at the moment, a lot of glads. I sell pre-made mixed bouquets which have been selling extremely well.

Last week I had beautiful Pro Cut sunflowers with large heads - I sold 3 in a bunch with about 5 stems of Velvet Curtains Amaranthus for $10 and not one person hesitated at the price (one lady bought 2 as she liked the whole look in the bucket). I could have sold many more than I had. This week the heads aren't so big so I'll be charging $8, and then that's it for my Pro Cuts (kicking myself all the way down the lane and back for not planting more of these beauties - next year I'll know better).

I'll second the kicking all the way down the lane for not planting enough pro cut suns, mine flew out of the buckets at market for a dollar a stem. Zinnias sold for .50c a stem and people loved them. I did not give a break in the price for buying bunches. I also grew sunbright supreme. Gorgeous sunflower, I highly recommend it, and it flowers for me in 60 days. By the way, which zinnias is everyone growing? I grew Benarys giant mix and got mostly yellows with some lovely dark pink huge flowers and some watermelon color and various others, I also grew that new pink one that everyone is ga-ga over (cant remember the name right now) and was not particularly impressed.

I am growing State Fair Mix zinnias. They have nice long stems with a mix of doubles and dahlia style with lots of colors: reds, light and dark oranges, light and dark pinks, kind of a magenta or watermelon pink, creamy white, golden yellow - they put on a show in the garden too - and just about every visitor asks what variety they are. I planted these from plugs but I am going to try my hand at saving the seed and trying get these to grow from seed next year. There is one odd pink one with a single row of curled petals that I hope to be able to save and see if it comes true to the original.

I went to my local farmer's market this Saturday and there was one flower vendor at the whole market (this is the market they told me they had too many flower vendors). She was selling bouquets of mixed colors of zinnias with misty for $8 a bunch. She put the oranges yellow and white in one bouquet and the pinks, yellow and whites in another along with the misty. She had single stems of zinnias she sells to children by the stem and they seemed to enjoy picking out their own. She also had long single stems of procut lemon - didn't catch the price of the suns - as she got very busy and I didn't want to distract the customers. She also had some shorter stemmed very dark red almost black velvety petaled sunflowers I really liked - could have been velvet queen.

She also said she grows hydrangeas under shade cloth (its very hot here) and I am going to buy some to dry to use in dried arrangements.

Linda

Wheee... it's nice to see folks actually talking about prices! A couple years ago I posted a half-dozen such questions and no one would speak up at all!

the only thing I have to add (which isn't much) is that at our market the single types of sunflowers sell MUCH better than the mixes other people say sell better for them. So it really does depend on your market. Mixed sunflower bunches here - heck, I could hardly GIVE them away. But put a bouquet of 6 or 7 tall, straight pro-cut types and they flew out of my bucket for ten, twelve bucks, easy.

Kristen

Wow, it's a little scary seeing how big the difference in regions is in bouquet prices. I've been watching the local grocery store prices and am thinking of basing mine off those. Sunflowers go anywhere from 3 for $7;99 to 4 for $8.99 at the local whole foods. Mixed bouquets anywhere from 7 bucks on up.

I'm not going to have as many flowers as y'all, just a small home gardener. Did come up with a neat way to display what cut flowers I will have though. We went to a yard sale a few weeks ago, and someone was selling a wire tea card and matching stand for five bucks. The tea cart was all rusty, but Ii've scraped it down and have painted it white. A long with the matching stand. They also fit perfectly in the back of my van:)

Looked the tea cart up online, the darn things sell for aroiund 300 bucks brand new.

I've also been 'snitching' the black floral buckets from the local grocery store. Ok, they really just kind of happily give them away. For some of the longer stemed sunflowers, I'm going to paint the buckets we get kitty litter in blue to cover the labels, and use those. The buckets also have lids, so I can carry the water for the flowers in them for transport!!!

We're going up a dollar from last year on our bouqets. I'll be using a 16" sleeve and charging $7.00 for mixed bouquets of 16 or so stems, mainly zinnias, celosia, and sunflowers.

Hi everyone- I'm MJ, and I've been loving this garden forum!
I want to thank everyone for their information- I hope to sell cut flowers at a road side stand this year, and was wondering about my prices.
I've been stock piling canning jars from garage sales (10cents each!) to put my flowers in. I was thinking $5 a bunch- because then there's less change involved. You've given me ideas of how many flowers to put in each bouquet.

The local grocery store sells 3-4 daisies, one carnation and a fern for $3.99. I know I can do better than that!

mj

I'm also increasing my prices this year. Last year's small $5 bouquet in a plastic cup will sell for $6 this year, and larger bouquets I sold for $8 last year will increase to $10.

Admittedly, I was hesitant on this increase. But I was also leary of going in low and then trying to increase my prices later in the season. I guess I thought I was setting my standard for the year, and increasing prices might mean having to make even bigger bouquets. It seemed easier to go in higher then lower the price in the future if need be.

Today was my first market of the year and I had some really nice peony/mix bouquets made up, priced at $10. I was sold out within 2 hours, and did not have one customer comment that the price was too much. So today I made the final decision to up my prices for the season.

I had a great day at market today - I'm still pumped. I also sell dried wreaths and arrangements and had a few left from last year which I took along. They sold, as did all the containers filled with a mixture of hens & chicks & sedums. It was such a good day, I had to tear down and leave early :).

Many of my peony bushes are just coming into bloom so I'll have another bunch to work with for next week's market. Pro-Cuts will be ready by next week, as will more of the filler material. For the pro-cuts (smaller heads), I'm planning on 5 stems plus filler for a $10 bouquet.

keep in mind that there are some farmers trying to sell their flowers at farmer's markets because the big wholesalers have all but shut down buying local because of their corporate greed and ability to buy cheaply from South American countries where their monetary unit is lower than a dollar and they are also permitted to use chemicals that are banned in this country which makes their growing more efficient and less costly. just something to think about. 2015 in New Jersey procut orange 30 inch stems 5 to a bunch..I get $3.00 the market sells for 5

We have the same problem up here, cheap peonies and suns come in all the time, but they do not compare with the locally grown ones in either color or size.

I don't sell any flowers as single specimine bunches any more. I can command a better price if they are in mixed bouquets and I find I can control my other flower sales better this way. If a flower is producing in abundance I include it in more of my bunches and ease up on the varieties that may not be producing as well.

Of course if someone specifically asks for only one type of flower I will sell it ,but they have to ask.