all four of the markets we attend have started for the season - quarryville growers market, eastern market, oakmont farmers market and millersville community market. each market is once a week...two on wednesday and two on saturday. that's a lot of markets, but if we don't go to markets, we don't sell products...and if we don't sell products, we don't make money and we wouldn't survive as a business.
going to market is easy, right? pick a bunch of stuff, throw it in the truck and off you go. yeah...not so much. it takes us (currently four people) ALL day tuesday to prepare for wednesday markets and ALL day friday to prepare for saturday markets. all day. we lose two days a week to getting ready for market where we could be planting and weeding and maintaining the plants in the field. then we lose two days a week going to market. that leaves me with thursday to get done everything that needs to get done. one day to maintain six acres of produce. yes, i have help. dale takes care of irrigation and cultivating. jeremy takes care of working up ground and planting peas, corn, beans. allyson takes care of e-mails and facebook and phone calls. but still, for me personally to only have one day a week to actually work in the field...that's not a lot of time.
so why does it take us all day to get ready for market? well, for one we have a lot of greens and quality is important to us. we harvest, double rinse, dry and bag all our greens. if we didn't bag our greens, they would wilt in the summer heat and wouldn't last once the customer bought them. since we are so diverse in the crops we grow, we can't just walk down the row and cut cut cut. we cut things here and there and over there. it takes time to figure out what is ready to harvest and how much to harvest. how much kale did we sell last week? how much do we pick this week? we can probably sell 6lbs, but if we don't pick more, the leaves will just get bigger. (we like to sell reasonable sized leaves, not trees, so it is still tender and manageable and has better flavor.) so think about washing and bagging 50 heads of lettuce. then add 25lbs of cooking greens. then add 12lbs of loose leaf lettuce and mesclun mix. everything gets harvested, picked over (yellow, brown, rotten leaves pulled), double rinsed in our sinks, dried, weighed and bagged. and that's just greens. we currently also have asparagus, rhubarb, radishes, strawberries, broccoli, garlic scapes, spring onions and fresh cut herbs. all of which are harvested, rinsed, dried, bunched and bagged. (strawberries are picked directly into quart containers and herbs are bunched and put into jars of water.) everything gets counted. we keep a record of what items and how much we take to market and then what comes back from market. we then know what sold, what to take the following week and how to better plan for next year. if we rarely sold endive this year, we wouldn't plant it next year.
so that's the produce. what else do we need for market? we need tables and table cloths. we need a pop-up (portable tent). we need weights for the pop-up in case of wind. we need wooden boxes and baskets to display our produce. we need price tags. we need plastic bags and quart/pint containers. we need coolers and ice packs to transport our produce and meat in. we need a scale to weigh the meat. we need a money box with lots of change. we need a truck to transport everything. and last, but not least, we need two people per market to work the stand.
going to market is not easy. it takes time and energy and work, but without market, our business wouldn't be very successful.
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