It's been awhile since the last update.
I took pics last night (March 1st, 2018).
Everything is looking good.
Winds in January blew a lot of the fabric off. I had to spend half a Saturday a couple weeks ago and re-cover everything.
I used pins every 4' along the edges instead of every 6-8'. Also put some in the middles.
In the future I would leave new pins out in the rains for a month to get some rough surface to the pins. When new, they are shiny/smooth, and can pull out of the soil too easy when the wind blows.
The good part was that I had a clear shot at pulling the winter annual weeds out from around the emerging shoots where the fabric doesn't block the weeds. So everything is spotless and covered again.
The fabric withstood last nights' 50 MPH wind gusts just fine as of this morning.
I am going to seed dwarf white clover and dwarf tall fescue into the walkways next week so that I don't have to mow weeds every week.
I counted, and I have about 6,000 plants. There are 8 full beds that are 200' long with 3 rows in each bed. A 9th bed is about 50' long.
So, I hope to harvest about 6,000 bulbs which should be in the ballpark of 800 lbs.
I don't want to have to peddle this quantity to multiple places (produce stands/restaurants) throughout the summer and fall. My marketing plan is to contact a major CSA in my area and see if they will add a bulb to each box they distribute. They do about 700 boxes per week for an 18 week summer season, and then do a fall CSA for 11 weeks.
I'd need to move about 4,000 bulbs (about 550 lbs), so that would only take them about 6 weeks out of the 29 that they distribute. I'm thinking 90 cents per bulb, which is roughly $6.30 per pound.
I know prices are higher everywhere you look, but that is people selling in one pound lots and/or for seed. I do not want to run a website and ship at this point to capture the 10-20 dollar a pound market. I wouldn't enjoy that nor do I have the time. Order fulfillment, packaging, and shipping is no small task. So, yes, I could make more, but it will cost more to do.
I'd rather pull it, cure it, and deliver it to one buyer and move on.
If I can get everything dialed in and rig up my small tractor to lift the bulbs, harvest should be easy. I am going to set up a 52' long trailer body from a tractor trailer with wire benches and dry and cure in it. I can put a giant greenhouse fan at the tail end that will pull air from the side doors in the front end. In effect, it would be like a wind tunnel.
Anyway, here are the pics:
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