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Posts Tagged ‘markets’

Early Crops, Early Revenue

April 19th, 2010
DeepSeeded Community Farm | Blog

While my main sales outlet at DeepSeeded Farm is my CSA program, I have planted a number of early crops for Farmers Markets as well. These crops bring in revenue early in the season, and they also help me market my CSA shares. This year, through a combination of coldframe space and fall-prepped, early spring planted outdoor beds, I am now harvesting butter lettuce, spinach, salad turnips, carrots, potatoes, baby bok choi, and (soon) zucchini and sunflowers. I’ll also have an early harvest (late May) of coldframe onions, outdoor peas, and outdoor carrots that will allow for a more robust start to my CSA season.

The colframe crops are easy to grow, but the space is expensive. The early outdoor beds are less expensive in terms of materials, but take a good bit of extra work. So, is it worth it? I don’t have good numbers for cost of production, so I can’t really evaluate the profitability, but I can sell almost everything I produce this early, and for a higher price. Here’s a breakdown of revenues per 100’ bed:

Coldframe:

Butter Lettuce -350 heads @ $2.25 average = $790

Bunching Spinach -170 bunches @ $2.50 average = $425

Salad Turnips -220 bunches @ $2.60 average = $570

Carrot Bunches -250 bunches @ 2.25 average = $560

New Potatoes -400 lbs @ $2.00 average = $800

Sunflowers (med-large) - 300 @ $1.50 = $450

Zucchini - 530 lbs (over 8 weeks) @ $1.80 average = $955 (but in this time frame I could instead have a whole 2nd crop of radishes or cilantro or arugula)

Outdoor (2 weeks later than coldframe):

Butter Lettuce -350 heads @ $2.00 = $700

Bunching Spinach - 150 bunches @ $2.50 average = $375

Baby Bok Choi bunches - 260 bunches @ $2.50 = $650

As you can see, some crops are more lucrative than others. But.. the diversity makes sales easier. If my entire coldframe was in lettuce, I would likely have to find wholesale outlets that would not give me as high of a price. As soil fertility and my production techniques improve I may see higher yields and higher revenues, but for right now, it’s just great to have some money coming in. Here’s some pics:

Butter lettuce in coldframe (transplanted mid-February)

Tags: markets, revenue, early, season extension, coldframe

Posted in: Farm Financials

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Rainy day

February 23rd, 2010
Driftwood Farm | Blog

Today’s rain is allowing us to take a break from the outside work, to hopefully catch up on our planning, and take a deep breath.

Matt has been working on converting a 10’ x 20’ car canopy into a greenhouse, as well as building a couple of top-bar bee hives from scratch. In the meantime, I’ve been preparing beds, getting our first batch of seeds started in the small (8’ x 10’) greenhouse, and getting the rest of the perennial crops into the ground (the latest were artichokes and more blackberries) ahead of the rain.

We have a relatively short growing season here on the northern California coast (our place is about 1 mile inland). The farmers markets in coastal Mendocino, where we are, run from May to October. There is so much to do, that we are glad we still have a couple of months to get ready before the markets start… although we know the time will go quickly!

Tags: greenhouse, rain, seeds, bee hive, top bar hive, Mendocino County farmers markets

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Market Season Winding Down

October 24th, 2009
Four Frog Farm | Blog

Today we were at 3 markets, just as it has been the last 20 weeks or so. We only have one more week of that schedule, and then we’ll be down to 1 market/week - Saturday mornings in Auburn. The markets went well - about 50% better than last week. The crops are still plentiful, the offering diverse. I felt like the grocery store this morning - beets, carrots, radishes, turnips, spring mix, arugula, celery, potatoes, winter squash, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, strawberries. That’s… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: garlic, markets, strawberries

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Boxing Shallots, Avoiding Real Work

September 23rd, 2009
Four Frog Farm | Blog

The spring-planted (from seed, not bulb, mind you), August/September cured shallots got boxed today. In other words, we spent the afternoon gettin our box on. It was a nice alternative to real work, like pulling up drip tape in field 2, or cultivating the carrots. It was upper 90s today, so real work sounded pretty tough (especially after a huge lunch of fettucini alfredo and ice cream). I usually hate not doing something in the field during the afternoons, but today was the perfect time to… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: farmer's markets, shallots, distribution

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Varied Distribution

September 20th, 2009
Four Frog Farm | Blog

Last year, my marketing plan was simple. I farmed one acre. I had 27 CSA shares. I figured, CSA comes first and then, whatever is left-over, goes to farmers’ markets. I didnt’ have enough for supermarkets, and, therefore, no interactions with produce managers took place. This year, we earn as much from supermarkets as we do from farmers’ markets and CSA. This brings a new level of reponsibility, organization, phone calls, and, yes, quality. It is quality of a different… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: CSA, farmer's markets, supermarkets, produce managers

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the Rumor mill

August 16th, 2009
Four Frog Farm | Blog

This is an update to the saga with the farmers’ market police on tuesday. We do three farmers’ markets on Saturdays. Logan does one in the town of Auburn, about 45 minutes or so from the farm. One of the board members of that market let Logan know that rumors were spreading through the market about us. they were saying that we don’t grow all the food we sell. the board member assured us that he/she believed us and that we should take the rumors as a compliment. Compliment… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: farmer's markets

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Help from our Community members!

June 20th, 2009
Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm | Blog

Jared here, reporting from my European tour. So far I mixed the Fleet Foxes at these two festivals. I feel like I’ve taken a trip to the moon. Touring is so vastly different then my usual day to day life on the farm. I left on Wednesday but before doing so I was able to help harvest the 24 CSA shares that we deliver that day. After a mere two hours of sleep I awoke to harvest beets, turnips, radishes, chard, kale, garlic scapes, cabbages, peas, broccoli, and spinach. … Read the rest of this article »

Tags: CSA help, European markets

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A Community Work Party

June 10th, 2009
EarthDance Farm | Blog

Last Monday we had our 1st Community Work Party on the farm, and it was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Not only did we have the help of about 12 apprentices and a few significant others, but many other friends and strangers alike showed up, ready to lend a hand. The biggest task on our plate was our sugar snap pea harvest. The plants were full of them and wanted to be lightened up in a major way. I wish I knew exactly how many pounds we picked (and then sold out of at market!), but it was at least… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: community, markets, sugar snap peas

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Early June Update

June 6th, 2009
Four Frog Farm | Blog

Hello Everyone. June has arrived and our CSA has started. We just finished our first week. We have 60 members in our CSA right now and hope to elevate that number to 90 within the next couple of weeks. The first zucchini of the season is here as well - a herald of the summer upon us. We also are going to three farmers markets per week, soon to be six. All told, we are planted up around 6 acres, with about 3.5 left to plant. Those will be filled up with more peppers, winter squash,… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: CSA, farmer's markets, summer squash

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Thank you!

May 10th, 2009
Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm | Blog

We’ve had a great few days here on our farm. We thank our customers in our communities of Bainbridge Island and Poulsbo, WA. It’s good to have all the support we can get. We’re working every single bit we can to bring you our heirloom biodynamically planted produce. Once again, love following the biodynamic calendar. Really looking forward to learning more about using biodynamic methods. So far I’m digging on the methods of Elliott Coleman combined… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: farmer's markets, stuck, biodynamics, Elliott Coleman

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Three farms are starting from scratch.

They are turning the dirt and hoping to be successful enough to turn a profit, and to become a valuable part of their communities as suppliers of organically grown food.

Peaceful Valley is giving them a head start by offering them special pricing as part of this Freshman Farmer program.

The Farm Blogs

Freshman:
New Farms Coming Soon!
Sophomores:
	Daily Grace Farms Crescent City, CA
	Freestone Family Farm Vernal, UT
	Wise Moon Farm Redding, CA
Graduates:
	Coyote House Farm Palermo, CA
	DeepSeeded Community Farm Arcata, CA
	Driftwood Farm Fort Bragg, CA
	EarthDance Farm St. Louis, MO
	Ellwood Canyon Farms Goleta, CA
	Four Frog Farm Penn Valley, CA
	Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm Poulsbo, WA
	Home Plate Organic Farm Orleans, CA
	Honey in the Heart Farm Nevada City, CA
	Willow Springs Farm Penn Valley, CA