I got a pretty fair amount of honey bottled up today and actually a pretty good harvest out of the gardens and raised beds to take to market.
The tomatoes are having a really bad year but enough good looking ones are finally ripening up that I have a pretty good selection to offer so I will be making the first attempt at my little heirloom marketing ploy. We will see if it works or not.
My plan is to place all the different varieties out and let customers pick and choose/ mix n match so they can try as many different types of my heirloom master pieces as possible, or whatever takes their fancy.
Eventually I would like to do this with many different types of plants. From peppers to muskmelons etc. Unfortunately my melon production didn't quite produce as I had planned. Timing the musk melons for weekend sales is not as easy as tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. They pretty much have a small two day window to get them or they seem to over ripen very quickly. I tossed at least half a dozen melons this afternoon.
My water melons were so totally over run by the pumpkins I cannot even find any out there. I have learned some valuable melon growing lessons this year. For now on they are going to have about as much space as they got this year, that wasn't the problem. The problem was keeping the boundaries. I failed worse than US Immigration services this year and the pumpkins totally colonized and choked out the water melons and even got all the way into musk melon territory.
Pumpkins need their boundaries strictly enforced lol.
So anyway everything is labeled up and loaded and ready to go set up at o dark thirty in the morning. So far this Summer has begun to prove my theory correct that farmers markets and local growing is becoming viable once again in this economy. Honestly if I hadn't lost so many hives this last Winter my guess is I would really be able to at least sustain myself.
I guess there is always next year.
Keep Prepping Everyone!!!
You have done good, we are out of honey and need to look for some non-store stuff. My pumpkins didn't do much so they stayed in their spot but I had some butternut that wandered into the corn patch.
ReplyDeleteSf - If we hadn't have had that drought last year I would be doing really well this year. I lost too many hives to really hit the production I had hoped for this year. Sigh. Maybe next year :)
DeleteYou're certainly on the right track. About all I have to sell here is firewood, and that's coals to newcastle unless I could drive all the way to the city. Couldn't sell wood for enough to pay for the fuel so I don't guess that would fly.
ReplyDeleteHF - Well in a long term grid down situation it would be profitable, and run year long as well I imagine.
DeleteIf we lost cheap electricity wood would be scarce very quickly.
I like your plan, and wish you all the luck in the world at the market.
ReplyDeleteThanks Stephen, It was a pretty good day. Like I was saying once I recover from the long term drought problems I think this endeavor could be profitable enough for me to be satisfied with. Then again it doesn't take much for me to be happy honestly.
DeleteI know that you are on the right track, people are dying for some tasty, homegrown produce, and are willing to pay a premium in the suburbs. I'm hoping that your garden can provide enough money to cover your other grocery costs. That would be a wonderful feeling!
ReplyDeleteK - The competition on veggies right now is stiff even still. There are a couple of people attempting the same thing right now and there is always the two or three re-sellers as well. Together the honey and veggies is viable I think once I have enough producing hives anyway but on their own the veggies are still too narrow a margin I think. I believe that is only going to get better however.
DeletePioneerP - congrats to you! it sounds like you have a viable little operation going and if you can make money from your honey, fruit and veg - that's just awesome. we are nowhere near to being able to produce enough for market. good luck!
ReplyDeleteyour friend,
kymber
Kymber and Jamby - As I mentioned above on their own the veggies are still too low a margin. It's almost complete profit now but even brisk sales at the low prices due to competition doesn't add up to a lot overall. If I had more producing hives however I could hot more sales and make some fair money I believe.
Deletebest of luck pioneer p!
ReplyDeleteThank you Jamby. I wish I had your construction services around here I would be booming right about now.
DeleteGood job getting it all started and I hope you do well..especially with your honey.. cause it is Delish!
ReplyDeleteJuGM - Did you get it?!!!
DeleteI wish I had four times the hives I got now I really do.
PP,
ReplyDeleteIt sure sounds like you had a great display of home grown vegetables and fresh honey for the farmers market. I hope your return to the farm sold out.
Your pumpkins sound like my honey dew vines crossing borders, and squeezing the life out of my tomato plants. No visas were granted to the melon vines!!!