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Old June 22, 2011   #16
Colorado_west
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We rarely have crows here. A guy here told me how to tell watermelon are ripe and it worked okay. dry stem it seems it was. I never had any complaint. Never had a heck of lot. Sugar babies and people never saw before it seems. I though good size and the taste is great. Raccoon went after the Rockyfords when they found out what they were. Rockyfords here are orange. Store here now sells smaller melons. Watermelons are high priced here.

I doubt "cat grass" would sell here. DIL was going to make dog coats to sell. People do buy and paid for the darnest stuff.
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Old June 22, 2011   #17
whistler
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My market is small, but I put out a "Coming Soon" sign to advertise the cat grass, and I did get several inquiries. For $1, I should be able to sell a handful of 3.5" pots. I had maybe one or two inquiries about the wheatgrass - mainly "what is it?". Maybe I'll put out an ad on Craigslist mentioning that I have it at my specific market. We'll see.

As for watermelons, that discussion is not helping my original question since I don't have any space for them. Feel free to start another thread for that discussion, though.

I ended up thinning out the raspberry patch last Friday, and sold the canes (all with roots, of course) for $5 a bunch (4-5 canes). That was my big seller last week. I have another patch to thin this week, so I hope to repeat the performance on Saturday. Haven't put the swiss chard in yet, really need to do that...
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Old June 22, 2011   #18
Worth1
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Have you considered eggs, I know this is about what to sell while waiting for tomatoes to come in but eggs are something you can sell almost all of the time.

Then if you get the right chickens you can sell feathers for tying flies.
Dont know if you have the intrest or the space or what ever, it is just a thought.

Fresh herbs should be a big seller and something easy to grow.



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Old June 23, 2011   #19
JackE
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"Then if you get the right chickens you can sell feathers for tying flies."

Are you a flyfisherman? If so, send me a PM.

********************

Whistler, it's very difficult if not impossible to discipline these informal threads like professional sites where people participate as part of their job. This is just for fun - more like a group of people visiting around a campfire - you walk into the woods to relieve yourself and when you return they're talking about some thing else. They may all be connected by a common interest, but the conversation swings to and fro. If a thread wanders. it's easy to bring it back to the topic with a single post.

Disciplined, all-business forums are useful for information, but very boring - www.producecommunity.com is an example. No fun at all, just work.

Jack
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Old June 23, 2011   #20
goodwin
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Jan and I took some tomatoes the last 3 weeks, but we also do well in the spring with rhubarb, fresh garlic and herbs. This Saturday I'll have raspberries and pie cherries. Nice to be at the market and have a little money coming in after the long winter and a really rough spring.
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Old June 23, 2011   #21
Colorado_west
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Green beans, squash, Squash blooms, radish, green onions, salad greens ( leaf lettuces and such.) I tried to have early tomatoes. Asperagus is early. Peas, pea pods.


Matters to what you can legally do. Bake cookie, breads jams and jellies. Dried herbs. Here market was very small and mostly crafters. We could not put crafts with our garden stuff.

I wanted to buy a salad spinner to do greens and I found too high priced.
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Old June 23, 2011   #22
Wi-sunflower
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I wanted to buy a salad spinner to do greens and I found too high priced.

If you have a restaurant supply store near you check them out.

I found the same spinner that Johnney's sells at Restaurant D e p o t for $110. They have an online page but I don't know if the shipping would be reasonable. I have one of their stores near me where I get my bags and other supplies.

Carol
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

why is " d e p o t" a "bad word" ??
I had to post it this way or it starred out.
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Old June 23, 2011   #23
tommytonk
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Default Salad-Spinner

http://www.amazon.com/KitchenAid-Pro...838802&sr=8-45

free shipping and no sales tax
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Old June 23, 2011   #24
whistler
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Goodwin - thanks for the pic. I really like your sign (and the fact that you're getting $6 / bowl of tomatoes!). Where did you get your sign, and about how much did it cost? I'm looking at inexpensive vinyl landscape (horizontal) signs, but a long vertical one would be very cool.

Also like your chalkboard menu. I'm using a magnetic whiteboard now because I already had one available, but the chalkboard just looks better.
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Old June 23, 2011   #25
Wi-sunflower
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Here is the spinner I mean. Much bigger than a "home owner" type http://www.therdstore.com/mm5/mercha...name%2Cdescrip

Carol
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Old June 23, 2011   #26
biscgolf
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Quote:
Originally Posted by whistler View Post

I ended up thinning out the raspberry patch last Friday, and sold the canes (all with roots, of course) for $5 a bunch (4-5 canes). That was my big seller last week. I have another patch to thin this week, so I hope to repeat the performance on Saturday. Haven't put the swiss chard in yet, really need to do that...
i have been doing very well with black raspberry plants this year at our market at $5 a pop. i dug up an entire section of black raspberries to expand my asparagus beds.

i agree with others that the lull between spring and summer is a tough time at markets... i feel like i'm treading water until blackberries and heirloom tomatoes come in in bulk...
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Old June 23, 2011   #27
biscgolf
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wi-sunflower View Post
Here is the spinner I mean. Much bigger than a "home owner" type http://www.therdstore.com/mm5/mercha...name%2Cdescrip

Carol
we use a washing machine specifically purposed for spinning greens for ours- just bag them in mesh laundry bags drop them in and put on the spin cycle... a real time and labor saver.
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Old June 25, 2011   #28
Colorado_west
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Biscgolf, I see the new washers have spin cycle you can set . With very many greens that would be way to go. Here I do not think market I could sell enough to buy a $39 one.
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Old June 26, 2011   #29
Wi-sunflower
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One thing about any of the above suggestions is to see what IS already being offered at your market.

If others are selling bags of cut lettuce and micro greens, don't try the micro lettuce sprouts. People won't buy that when they can get the big grown in the ground stuff.

I'm also finding that there is a window of opportunity for "sprouts" in general. I sold a lot last week. But because there is more "real" produce available now, this week it just sat there.I think late in the fall and if you have an indoor market, during winter and then again really early spring are the windows for sprouts.

In the past I've also sold the radish pods. If they are picked at the proper time they have the consistency of sugar snap peas but the flavor of radishes. Great addition to a salad or stir fry. I have a couple of restaurant customers that pickle them too. I usually cut the bunches and band a couple together and sell them that way. But this week at our Wed market it was SLOW due to rain so Mom took them off the cluster and we sold them in cups like berries or pea pods. Even tho we sold them for more than twice the price they sold as fast as we could pick them.

On the way home Sat we had to do our "rough count" of our take twice because the first count seemed way too good for what little we had. But it was right due to ALL the radish pods we sold. Mom was picking them all day and Ray and I were "hyping" them til we were both about horse from offering samples. But the samples really sold them.

Radish pods are an odd and unpredictable crop. If the weather isn't right they will get hard in a day or 2 and you won't be able to sell them. This week it was easy picking because we had cool wet weather and they had just plumped up. Next week we will have to be careful to only get the green pods and not any that are too "lumpy" or yellow as those are dry and awful. But we should have at least another picking from this planting and we have several more plantings coming.

The thing is, you have to constantly change your products as other try to do the same things you do. But sometimes you luck out as we did this weekend.

Carol
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Old June 27, 2011   #30
whistler
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There are 3 - 4 other raw vegetable sellers at my market (10 - 12 vendors total). They grow with high tunnels and greenhouses and on a much bigger scale than I do. I have to compete on differentiated product - in the past few weeks I have sold the raspberry canes (sold out both times), fresh horseradish, a few strawberries, cut flowers, heirloom tomato seedlings, other vegetable seedlings, and the cat grass / wheatgrass.

Some of those other farmers are bringing hybrid tomatoes already, along with cucumbers and other usual / normal vegetables. In a few weeks, I will have my heirloom tomatoes in all shapes and colors, plus red noodle beans, dragon tongue beans, rattlesnake beans, a variety of odd beets and carrots, and hopefully a large variety of peppers, hot peppers and eggplants. I chose to leave the “regular” items to the other vendors – if you come to my booth, you never know what weird and wonderful items I might have this week. For fall, I am growing huge Argonaut squash and the sweet potatoes that grew to the size of footballs last year (and still tasted like sweet potatoes).

This is definitely a learning experience for me, and next season I should do a lot better. I am practicing my selling technique, making lots of business contacts, and so far I have made money each week, which is pretty good. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions – keep them coming!

--------
By the way Carol, I got $2 / 3.5" pot for the cat grass ($2 each or 3/$5). I only sold 5 pots, but that covered my costs for the flat. Plus, I hope to have gotten some recurring customers.

I’m going to look into the radish pods – they sound interesting!
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