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Old January 22, 2009   #8
Wi-sunflower
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 2,591
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Maybe. That still sounds like a lot of plants for the space tho.

I forgot and am too lazy to look back in the thread to see if you are staking / tieing up the plants. If so, maybe you will be able to fit them in.

Your math in the first post may be right, but from doing market gardens for about 30 years now, I know that as you get bigger in size, you loose the total control you have when doing something small scale. My rule of thumb is for every time you double the size of the planting, you can only count on 1/2 again the amount of produce. Even less if you get beyond what you are able to do yourself as no one takes care of things for others like they do for themselves.

As far as profit goes, it's similar as there will be more work and hired labor, etc as you get bigger in size.

Yet another anomoly I've run into several times -- while you are growing something just as a trial or to see if you like it, but without and real "customers", you will have virtually no problems growing it. Yields will be fantastic. As soon as you build up a customer base that is looking for that product and maybe even depending on it, everything will go wrong. The weather will cr@p out on you, the bugs will be horrible, the seed will be discontinued. It goes on and on like that.

And yes I was killed when a particular variety of Bok Choy seed was discontinued. I could plant that 1 variety from early spring til fall and get fantastic crops for my Chinese restaurant customers. Since I can no longer get that variety, I haven't found a variety that grows worth a darn in my area. They all bolt and I'm lucky to get 20% of a crop spring or fall.

That's why I've been reluctant to go into a CSA type business. (CSA = community supported ag = subscription gardening) I'm always afraid that if I HAVE to produce a bag/box of produce for people that have already paid me for it, I won't have anything to put in the boxes. Or all they will get is the same 1 or 2 things every week.

Basically when figuring for yields / income from a garden, do your planing, but then figure just 1/2 of whatever yields you SHOULD get. That way if you have a good season, you have excess and will do well. But if you have a so-so to terrible season, you haven't over committed and disappoint customers.

Just my opinions, your milage may vary.
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