Hi grass city, I'm posting to see if any of you have had experience with selling produce from any of your gardens. I am very familiar with gardens, my family farms and we always have a huge garden. well my grandpa can no longer garden so I figured I would make my own this summer and try making a nice living off it. me and my cousin are also going to start a shiitake mushroom farm, if anyone is familiar with it we might spore 500 logs this spring. I think I am going to build a stand to leave in our local town on some property my grandpa owns that gets plenty of traffic by it, just leave the shit out there and use the honor system for paying (it's a small town) plus if people need to steal small amounts of food I wouldn't care if they couldn't pay for it. so obviously at that stand it would be your mainstream produce (tomatoes,lettuce, peppers n shit) but I know of a few farmers markets in town and have heard of farmers making a LIVING selling at farmers markets. now I don't want to just sell the boring shit at farmers markets, I want to make my own niche. things like value added products, where you take produce and transform it into a different product (soap, chopped salads, chip shiitake mushrooms) my examples suck, but I hope you get what I am trying to say. maybe sell bundles pre bagged for smoothies, meals, or juicing. I am very interested in culinary and medicinal herbs, I think there are a lot of people at farmers markets that would try using these things to solve their ailments or to just stay healthy in general. I believe people are making a transition away from industrial farming and food. you may not have the same beliefs, but there are more and more people wanting local, organic food. the number of farmers aren't growing fast enough to accommodate these demands. I will be 20 this summer, and want to farm for a living. I have experience from gardening, hogs, cattle, hay, and field crops from the past 5 or 6 years of farming. if anyone has any advice from their experiences, or can suggest unique ideas or products that are popular at farmers markets I would greatly appreciate it. basically I want some original ideas thanks for reading! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It depends on what the markets are like in your area, but I've never heard of someone making a living from the farmers market alone. Usually it's a combination of the market, CSAs, bartering, and selling at local stores. You've got the right idea though. Majority of folks will be selling summer and fall produce so mushrooms and soaps would be unique items.
I actually used to work at a farmers market when I interned with this crazy hippy in Utah. He did aquaculture container gardening all down the sides and roof of his house and had the automatic watering pump connected to three koi fish ponds. He made 3/4 of an acre in a suburban house lot into a self sufficient farm. Brilliant t dude, I wish I could spend more time with him. Anyway, he used to make the bulk of his money selling rare herbs in solo cups at the farmers market, and sprouts were also a big seller. People also often look for living soils to buy which you can easily mass produce and sell for a good price to other organic farmers and gardeners. Good luck to you with this, I envy the life of a farmer or someone like my crazy hippy friend while I've been living in the city I feel like a piece of garlic bread
thanks for the advice bro, you're hippy boss sounds crazy! in a good way Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If You have any questions SlimJim ask, I have been an organic market farmer for years, 37 years at assorted markets, currently have over a quarter acre to grow in
before launching onto the local population consider selling in bulk to restaurants even schools, the contract will pay for the bills leaving the other sales as profit