A Tuesday Evening Post
Well, I’ve been wanting to make a post here for some time now and haven’t had a chance to work one up. So here’s a little something so that you don’t think we disappeared.
This year we are doing more gardening. Planting extra of everything so we can have a road side stand. It will be kind of a trial run to see what folks think of our produce.
We have yard sales periodically and they always go over well. In fact we just had one over Memorial Day weekend and I’d say it was yet another astounding success. Our friends Ken and Dawn and their kids Dusty, Cheyenne and Jessie came up from IL to help us. They brought a truck load of stuff to add to ours. The combined efforts made for a nice combination of things for all kinds of holiday rummage sale shoppers. And we got to unload a lot of our good garbage finds. A great way to recycle and add a little to our wallet.
Ken and Dawn brought a large item which didn’t sell. A truck mounted freezer unit they had bought for their meat delivery business which they are now no longer doing. So if anyone out there has a need for something like that let me know and I’ll get you in touch with Ken.
Until Next Time
This year we are doing more gardening. Planting extra of everything so we can have a road side stand. It will be kind of a trial run to see what folks think of our produce.
We have yard sales periodically and they always go over well. In fact we just had one over Memorial Day weekend and I’d say it was yet another astounding success. Our friends Ken and Dawn and their kids Dusty, Cheyenne and Jessie came up from IL to help us. They brought a truck load of stuff to add to ours. The combined efforts made for a nice combination of things for all kinds of holiday rummage sale shoppers. And we got to unload a lot of our good garbage finds. A great way to recycle and add a little to our wallet.
Ken and Dawn brought a large item which didn’t sell. A truck mounted freezer unit they had bought for their meat delivery business which they are now no longer doing. So if anyone out there has a need for something like that let me know and I’ll get you in touch with Ken.
We are really hoping to have enough produce to sell this year even if we have to find other growers in our area who we can help keep us supplied. I suspect that might be the case with the past success’ we’ve had with bringing in the public. There was over 500 admission’s to the petting zoo that we did that one year. I’m thinking we’ll have more demand than we’ll have produce.
There was even a time or two when we put a cooler full of surplus eggs out at the road as a self serve stand. We were surprised at everyone’s honesty. There was always the right amount of money in the can. If we’d have tried that back were we came from, someone would have taken the whole works, cooler and all.
Over all we are having a beautiful season. Finally getting some decent rain to help fill up some of the shrinking lakes of the past couple years. Of course there’s always a draw back to something good like with plenty of rain comes those buzzard like mosquitoes’ that northern Wisconsin is famous for. That’s when you hear the jokes about the mosquito being the Wisconsin state bird.
Until Next Time
posted by RL at 9:27 PM
6 Comments:
Hi Russ,
We are going to try to sell produce as well, and are in the figuring out how to do it process. Our biggest item will be raspberries, but since we planted 140 tomato plants, I'm sure some of those will up for sale or I will be canning into December!
Howdy Lynn,
We just spent two days at the Renewable Energy Fair in Custer and picked up what looks like a pretty good book called "Backyard Market Gardening {The Entrepreneurs Guide to Selling What You Grow}" by Andrew W. Lee. We've been skimming through it and see that it has alot of good idea's about getting started selling produce. Also I like Joel Salatins approach of "relationship marketing". The Wallers seem to have used the same method by virtue of their warm personalities.
Wow, that’s a lot of tomato plants! Last year we had around 20 and had tomatoes coming out our ears. Kelli canned a lot of sauce. Which I reckon is also something that could be sold. Salatin calls that adding value to a product or “value added“. I kind of like that idea too. Herrick Kimball does that with his garlic.
God Bless,
Russ
Thanks for the book title. After suppers our son Jonathan has been reading a chapter to us from Joe Salatin's book, "Family Friendly Farming," and it's full of great helps. We are going to go slow with selling our produce, and just see what develops. I can't believe we are almost into July already, it's getting scary at how quickly the summer is going. Canning season is coming too fast!
Hey Russ,
I thought we talked about the length of time between blogs while you were down here. There are serious blog readers out here just waiting for a post. Now, lets get to it!
All kidding aside, hope all is well at the farm. Sure enjoyed your visit. Take care. Dawn
Your welcome Lynn. As you can see I haven't been checking in lately. Sorry for the delayed response. Looks like I'm nearly a month behind as you said you can't believe we are almost into July and at this date we are almost into August. Yikes!
Russ
Hey Dawn,
Yep, all is well at the farm. Been busy with building a new brooder for 90 chicks we recently got, plus taking care of the pigs. Kelli's planning another yard sale for this weekend. Maybe Kens gas tank will sell,,,again. Or maybe the guy will see the signs and remember he forgot to pick it up last time. Hey, we could charge him a storage fee if he does come by.
You know, I did start a new post soon after we got back from down there and wouldn't you know I never finished it, so that's what I'm going to do this evening.
Now that you and Ken both are signed on with Blogger I expect to see some more comments.
I imagine you all are busy getting ready for KJ's wedding. We'll be praying.
Russ
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