I love this thread! Mostly because when we started selling at Farmers' Markets we couldn't find anything and felt like we searched everywhere for supplies, techniques, etc. We ended up starting our own little e-commerce site that caters to small-scale vendor selling at Farmers' Markets (link in my signature). A few techniques that worked best for us was: Cleanliness! We always have a clean table and tablecloth. Clear and professional signing! (I've seen people that just write onto a square of brown cardboard) Don't forget to label your products too! Not everyone can tell the difference between straight neck squash and crook neck squash... Keep your pricing simple! I have an article here about pricing. BE FRIENDLY!! (someone already mentioned it but it is worth mentioning again!!). Be proud of your farm, and your produce, and your wares ( or whatever it is your selling) and don't be shy about talking about it, how its grown/made, where you farm/shop is, etc. People are generally curious. And....if they are shipping at a Farmers Market they probably deep down want to break away from their own lives to start their own little farm... Hope this help and happy farming, Jeremy www.elwellsupplies.com A Farmers' Market Supply Store

Thank you all for your replies and advice. My question comes partly out of idle curiosity - I see vendors at local markets who seem like average homeowners and I read posts on this forum about selling at FMs. I also see people selling homemade foods on etsy. I wondered if there was a special waiver allowing this, something like the Cottage Food Law that Wizard and Annie mention. I also asked because I'm in the process of cooking down all the thinnings from our overburdened apple tree. I'm extracting the pectin in spite of DH's complaints that we can't use this much pectin in our lifetimes. So far I've cooked down about 150 lbs, and that's only half the tree. It crossed my mind that I could use this for jams and jellies and sell them at FMs. We have an apricot tree, a cherry tree and grape vines, so there's a lot of fruit for just two people. I'm not sure I'm ready to plunge into a FM stall yet, which will give me time to get answers from my state authorities. Thanks again for all your help, Cheryl

We make our initial offer based on what we feel we'd need to put into the property to make it function for us. We consider comps but don't really put much stock in them. It's not relevant for us but we do consider site value seriously & will spend quite a bit of time with due diligence. We visit the local court house & do title searches. We speak with the tax assessor's office. We speak with the zoning & building departments. We used to physically visit schools if they were new to us; but don't any longer because our kids are grown. The only dollar amount that matters, to us, is what's the total cost going to be for us to live in this house contentedly? If that number turns out to be too far off what the seller believes his property is "worth" then we move on & look for another. We're not emotional buyers. As to the home inspection. We're not too fussy. We've already taken most everything into account when we made our offer. However, with the home we currently own...we'd anticipated the south-facing sunroom would require reroofing & had included that in our offer calculations. The HI revealed that the gutters had failed (due to lack of maintenance, probably) & ice had gotten up underneath the sheathing resulting in rot we'd not anticipated. So, we went back to the seller & negotiated a price reduction from our original offer for the price to completely reroof. We then contracted for the roof replacement ourselves because we wanted to upgrade the overall quality beyond what we'd requested from the seller. Other than the roof, we didn't request the seller do anything except complete a fence he'd already started & had the materials ordered for. We didn't want to take over the project mid-stream. This wasn't part of the HI...we made our offer contingent on the fence being finished. We wouldn't request radon, asbestos, or lead paint issues to be resolved by a seller. They don't scare us & we have a number of people we could tap to remediate anything serious. Tricia

Soapbox here - Tomatoes grown in hoop houses (or green houses, hot houses) or grown hydroponically can easily be ready in June and can be considered locally grown. Perfectly shaped because they can be manipulated sun-wise with grow lights to get the right light all they way around - different than open field grown, and are bug/virus/critter free. Why they are not quite ripe depends on when they are picked. If a Market is on Saturday they have to be picked Wed to Fri. If they are perfectly ripe on Tuesday they will be mush on Saturday. I have also watched people pick up every single fresh tomato of 200 or so on a table, turn each one over, inspect it, put it down, then walk away. Figure 100 people doing that per hour and that poor ripe tomato is mush. Under ripe are sturdier. Just saying. On the subject of "perfect" - a question I'd like to put to my customers who want their piece of pie "perfect" I should ask (but I am too polite) - "Are you going to photograph it or eat it"? Homemade is not picture perfect because a machine didn't make it!!!!! Same for produce. A few shot holes in beet greens do not make them less tasty, a wriggly carrot might just be a lot sweeter than a perfectly straight one, an asymmetrical potato grown in a field 10 miles away tastes better than a perfect one shipped from Idaho 2,000 miles away and chemically treated to not sprout so you get to eat that stuff too. As for "locally grown", please ask the farmer where his/her farm is. But, 75 miles is acceptable for my Market which means my 7B can easily be almost zone 8 and a full four weeks earlier in warmth then here! It's OK for me. Ask if you could visit their farm, to drive-by, not inspect. Ask the Market Manager if they visit their vendor's farms to verify where the produce they offer comes from. If they don't it means that the Market is a free-for-all. Produce could be shipped in from China or Brazil or Mexico - not local but selling locally. We have a State Farmers Market and before it opens the sales people line up in the way back to buy bushels of produce that were grown all over the State - mostly by high production commercial farms, not mom and pop ones. Those behind the table taking your money may never have set foot on a farm - they are just employees and what they offer is exactly the same as what the grocery store offers, they get it from the same commercial farms. So, local is relative - it only means from the State of NC to that Market here. If you find a local Market vendor who is the farmer (as my Market verifies) then bypass the grocery store with the perfect-perfect produce and buy the slightly imperfect from your Market. We can't grow rhubarb, lemons, or bananas in NC. If your Market has vendors offering things that don't grow in your State, then go to the grocery store. Donna - I am with you. Importing food and eliminating local farming with the lost knowledge of how-to farm puts our food supply at risk, just like Venezuela. 80% of small farms have disappeared. Here is the reality of farming in the US. Farming Changes in US And, here is why: Small Farms - Young People Not Interested When was the last time you heard some little one say they wanted to grow up to be a farmer? I support the farm vendors at my Market for their small local farm products whose prices are higher than the grocery store.