Wow!!

They look magnificient!

How you you do that??

You're growing stuff up there, around the North Pole, and nothing's happening down here.

I went out and stared at my ornamental grasses this morning, and they stared back at me. No growth overnight. No growth from last week! No growth since a month ago!!

Bah Humbug!!

P.S. And turnips really taste great! Those wonderful root vegetables.

I'm more of a beet guy. I have them every lunch time in my salad for the New Europa Cafe.

Pete: You should sell to those type of places. The margin must be great because I'm paying 7 - 8 bucks a day for a small salad (although I get my choice of ingrediants). With knuckleheads like me spending that kind of money on vegatables, you should be able to make a killing.

It's all about distribution, baby!!!!!

Also, LET'S GO NETS!!!!! We're coming on....

Wow, is right!! They look great. Here's hoping you can't sell them all and that M'len has to bring some down with her when she comes.

XXOO

Pete,

I hope that you will remember to bring the camera to the farmers market so we can all see your retail presentation. Plus, of course, more photos of Maryellen looking quite beautiful and pregnant!

Are you still thinking of having a farmstand at at the Old Shaw Farm?

Well, we are still thinking about a farmstand, but it probably won't be until the end of this season at the earliest. The shed we want to use as a farmstand needs some work, and we need to find some coolers.

I will provide some pictures of the retail spread, but probably not until a little later in the season. Right now, the retail set up is still pretty primative, and the veggie selection is still a little sparse, so this week might not be the week for pictures. But we'll see.

I am curious about the dynamics between sellers at the market. Do you pay a fee to set up? Or just show up? What happens if you set up your turnip stand next to the guy who's been selling turnips at the market for the past 50 years? I just heard a long story about vicious price wars among sunflower sellers, but that was in snooty Barrington RI - I'd hope Vermont has a more civilized way to work these things out.

Speaking of civilized Vermont... let me bring up politics, and religion, and intra-New England predjudice too by saying how surprised and delighted I was to learn that the episcopalians of uptight and gloomy New Hampshire went and elected themselves an openly gay bishop! Vermonters may have a socialist senator but you guys can't rest on your laurels much longer, it's time to one-up your neighbors. Maybe Bernie can ask NH's bishop for a date...

The market we are selling at is pretty mellow. It is organizes as a non-profit coop. You pay a $10 fee to join the coop, and then you pay 5% of your gross. The coop elects a market manager every year who is in charge of organizing and advertising the market each week. I think the market manager gets some nominal wage, like $5 an hour for his time. Everything you sell must be grown or made by you, and the actual farmer must be at the market -- you can't just send high school kids working on commission or something. There are anywhere from 20-40 vendors at our market on any given week.

Beyond that, our market is pretty free form. IF you show up every week, you can have a reguar spot, otherwise, you go wherever the market manager puts you. Other markets have quotas, like only 40% crafts people, or only 4 vegetable people, etc., but ours doesn't. So you could end up one week with 14 turnip growers, and none three weeks later when the turnip season is over.

At the annual coop meeting (which I attended this year as a new vendor) there seemed to be a good mix of produce, baked goods, sheep products (lamb, wool, etc.), meat (organic beef), house/bedding plants/flowers, and crafts.

We'll see what happens. My sense is that things are not that cutthroat at this market, but I may be wrong. I thik most people think it is in everyone's interest to build and promote the market.

On price, I think most people growing for a living on this scale realize (either beforehand, or through painful experience) that underselling to grab market share is a lose-lose proposition for everyone. If I sell at a loss to get customers, I will go out of business because there will not be a point when I can comfortably raise prices again. As soon as I raised my prices again to a livable wage, other vendors would start showing up again. The only way to undersell is through efficiency, and at this scale, there is not a lot that is going to distinguish me from the next guy in that department -- mechanization only helps so much on a diversified, organic farm.

To continue that last thought.

So I need to distinguish myself not through economies of scale or efficiency, but on quality, variety, service, and giving customers a connection to the farm where their food comes from.