How many sell homecooked food at their farmer's market?
canuckistani
15 years ago
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norcalconifers
15 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
Selling at Farmers Markets
Comments (8)Strawberry plants are very labor intensive as to their care. You do need to weed constantly and also be concerned with runners that the plants send out all summer. The June bearing type are ones that will send out about 3-10 runners in all directions. After about 2 years, the main plants become 'leggy'. This is when the crowns are raised up above the soil a few inches. Once thay are over about 3 years old, they tend to do poorly with few berries and need replacement. I used to grow them, and would pinch off many runners during fruiting time. Then I would get some of the runners rooted in small pots for following years mature plants. Fertilizer is very necessary, birds will peck holes in them, and rodents like chipmunks will carry whole ripe berries away in to time. I can't do these anymore as I was always crawling around on my hands and knees. Maybe blueberries or red raspberries might be good options instead. Driscoll type strwberries are the most popular of store bought ones. Good luck!...See MoreSelling at a farmer's market
Comments (6)Can you also sell perennials and biennials (markets permitting) for transplanting out ... again, sell things that the big box stores don't sell, like native plants and less common varieties. After you get your spring seedlings out, start the penstemons, yarrows and other things that are best planted in late summer and fall for next year's blooms. Let your customers know they are "in the oven" and take pre-orders with a deposit (non-refundable) if they want a lot. Get a FaceBook page and let your customers know about it on your business cards - update it when you know what's coming in well. A grower here does some okra and one post on Facebook that it's in season has people waiting for her truck on Saturday ... she sells lots of the stuff at $5 a pound because it doesn't ship worth a darn. Ask customers what they have been looking for they haven't seen - and see if you can grow it profitably....See Morewhere do you sell besides a farmers market?
Comments (7)I have very limited experience all around but have tried a few things other than markets. I put some stuff on consignment last year and the year before. This was at a produce stand and at a retail nursery that was setting up a "locally grown" stand. It wasn't bad I got 60-80% of good retail prices. I also sold butternut squash for 3 months to a restaurant and charged the same per pound as at the markets, with free delivery. I tried restaurants on other items but wasn't really ready and found that in general I do not like dealing with restaurants or doing too much hunting for buyers. I found one great chef who wants local organic produce. He is right near one of my markets but he's too busy to look at new items every week ,has a somewhat stable menu and production has not been big enough yet on most things I have grown. I would like to go back to selling to restaurants small scale... hopefully the one I mentioned and similar places, but won't bother until I could consistently deliver the same items for a couple of months or more. I wouldn't mind taking request to grow certain things for chefs, but I have only met a few and that has not happened yet....it could....See Moreselling canned goods at farmers market
Comments (12)Melissa, With water bath items, you might be able to sell certain jams and jellies but I am not sure about pickles because of the pH issues and because a lot of people make pickles using techniques no longer considered safe by the USDA, so they may be more regulated than they used to be. I don't know about salsas either, even those most of them are water-bathed. There are very few other veggies that can be water bathed any more because those techniques are no longer approved by the USDA for those veggies. The whole issue with home-canned products is that no one (and by no one I mean the government agencies that regulate such things) knows how you're making them, and that kind of process isn't tolerated very well by today's governmental bodies. They want to regulate everything that everyone does. I know that there are some people who sell home-canned goods in other states because they talk about doing it, and some are doing it illegally and know that they are but intend to do it until they get caught. There's a lot of other folks who checked into doing it and decided that the cost of meeting all the government rules and regulations would wipe out any potential profit, especially if they had to rent a certified/inspected kitchen. In Texas, last year, a very popular restaurant started a little farmer's market in their parking lot. Everything was fine because the government groups that regulate such things really didn't realize they were there. However, it became very popular very quickly and the government came in and told them to shut it down because neither the market nor vendors were licensed/approved/certified as required by state law. Just because they were doing it without governmental approval didn't mean it was OK to do it. That was a very sad situation because everyone involved in it was having fun and had total faith in the safety of the products offered there, but that doesn't matter to government regulators. If you decide to do it, be careful to follow all the applicable laws because if you don't, they can fine you. Dawn...See Morekydaylilylady
15 years agolast modified: 9 years agotulsacityfarmer
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15 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
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