It's no secret that I think that Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a great model for farmers and communities, so here are 7 CSA success secrets to help make your CSA a winner.
Read the rest of this article at CSA Success Secrets
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Practical Market Gardening Articles and Advice
I love gardening! And I love making money at it! I think there has never been a better time to start market gardening. Whether you have 25 acres, or 5 acres or even less than 1 acre, it's possible to create a successful market garden business.
If you are just getting started, there are many questions you should answer before throwing some seed in the ground . . .
Read the rest of this article at Market Gardening
If you are just getting started, there are many questions you should answer before throwing some seed in the ground . . .
Read the rest of this article at Market Gardening
Market gardening on a small scale
My current market garden is just over an acre, and has more than 200 beds that are each about 150 square feet in size. But if you have a smaller area to work with, here's a raised bed market gardening plan that will work for a big home garden or a small commercial garden.
You can build an organic market garden in just 5,000 square feet . . .
Read the rest of this article at The 5,000 Square Foot Market Garden
You can build an organic market garden in just 5,000 square feet . . .
Read the rest of this article at The 5,000 Square Foot Market Garden
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Why CSA Market Gardening is the Way to Go
If you are new to market gardening, my recommendation is you seriously consider the CSA market gardening model. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.
In the CSA model, your customers essentially subscribe to your market garden, paying in advance for a season's worth of fresh organic produce. It's a good model for the market gardener because she has a guaranteed market for her produce. It's good for the customers because they are getting a share of fresh, locally-grown veggies from a known source. And there are very specific business advantages as well.
Advantage 1: Customers are 'locked-in'
This is a great advantage for the CSA market gardener. Once you have 'signed up' your customers, they are yours for the season! You don't have to worry about losing sales to some other grower who undercuts your prices.
Advantage 2: Early cash flow
Since you will be meeting with your prospective customers before the season starts, you can collect advance payments from them to finance your market gardening start-up. So you can actually start this business with very little money out of your pocket. The early payment from customers will pay for seed and equipment and other start-up costs.
Advantage 3: Planned production
This is probably the single most powerful advantage of the Community Supported Agriculture model market gardening model; you can actually plan in advance how much you need to grow to satisfy your market! Since you will meet all your customers well in advance of the growing season, you can find out their likes and dislikes; e.g. if nobody you meet likes eggplant, don't grow it! Since you know exactly what you will be growing, and in what quantity (based on the number of customers you have), you can plan for costs, space in your greenhouse and garden, how much labour you will need, etc. This is a very powerful advantage over the poor guy who brings his produce to the farmer's market, never knowing what will sell and what will be wasted.
Advantage 4: The opportunity to sell more
Because you have meet and talk with your market gardening customers, you can find out about other products they might be interested in. Do you (or a friend) bake delicious bread? Maybe your customers would like a loaf or two with their order (at a price, of course). How about pickles and preserves, or pies and pastries? The possibilities are limitless. We sell just about all our pastured pork and pastured poultry to our CSA customers.
There's never been a better time to start market gardening; the demand for fresh, local produce is growing every year (at least 20% annually). If you have ever thought about tapping into that demand, and making money from your garden, CSA is the way to go!
Find out more about market gardening and starting your own CSA at Start Market Gardening
In the CSA model, your customers essentially subscribe to your market garden, paying in advance for a season's worth of fresh organic produce. It's a good model for the market gardener because she has a guaranteed market for her produce. It's good for the customers because they are getting a share of fresh, locally-grown veggies from a known source. And there are very specific business advantages as well.
Advantage 1: Customers are 'locked-in'
This is a great advantage for the CSA market gardener. Once you have 'signed up' your customers, they are yours for the season! You don't have to worry about losing sales to some other grower who undercuts your prices.
Advantage 2: Early cash flow
Since you will be meeting with your prospective customers before the season starts, you can collect advance payments from them to finance your market gardening start-up. So you can actually start this business with very little money out of your pocket. The early payment from customers will pay for seed and equipment and other start-up costs.
Advantage 3: Planned production
This is probably the single most powerful advantage of the Community Supported Agriculture model market gardening model; you can actually plan in advance how much you need to grow to satisfy your market! Since you will meet all your customers well in advance of the growing season, you can find out their likes and dislikes; e.g. if nobody you meet likes eggplant, don't grow it! Since you know exactly what you will be growing, and in what quantity (based on the number of customers you have), you can plan for costs, space in your greenhouse and garden, how much labour you will need, etc. This is a very powerful advantage over the poor guy who brings his produce to the farmer's market, never knowing what will sell and what will be wasted.
Advantage 4: The opportunity to sell more
Because you have meet and talk with your market gardening customers, you can find out about other products they might be interested in. Do you (or a friend) bake delicious bread? Maybe your customers would like a loaf or two with their order (at a price, of course). How about pickles and preserves, or pies and pastries? The possibilities are limitless. We sell just about all our pastured pork and pastured poultry to our CSA customers.
There's never been a better time to start market gardening; the demand for fresh, local produce is growing every year (at least 20% annually). If you have ever thought about tapping into that demand, and making money from your garden, CSA is the way to go!
Find out more about market gardening and starting your own CSA at Start Market Gardening
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Welcome to Market Gardening Tips
I love being a market gardener! No matter what the economy, or who is elected, or what 'Paris' or 'Brad' are doing, people still need to eat! And more and more what they want to eat is fresh, local organic veggies and meats.
This is great news for the small farmer; local organic produce carries a premium price. And if you structure your business right, you can create a nice market garden business on 5 acres, or 2 acres, or even less than 1 acre!
So, what' s the 'right structure'? Here' s the principles under which we operate award-winning New Terra Farm
For example, our first year market gardening we found 16 families that wanted to buy from us (we were operating in a Community Supported Agriculture model.) That first small garden was only about 6,000 square feet (1/7 of an acre) but we sold about $9,000 worth of veggies from it, and another $4,000 worth of organic pastured pork and chicken, too.
The next year, we doubled the size of our market garden; in year three we tripled that again! And our garden was still less than 1 acre.
What's the secret to growing a successful market garden? Well, just like any other business, there is a business cycle that you should follow. In other words, if you do things in the right order you can have a thriving business on your small farm.
What is the 'business cycle' you need to follow? It's simply this: You must do PLANNING before MARKETING, MARKETING before MANAGEMENT, and MANAGEMENT before PRODUCTION. It goes like this:
Find out more about our market gardening model
This is great news for the small farmer; local organic produce carries a premium price. And if you structure your business right, you can create a nice market garden business on 5 acres, or 2 acres, or even less than 1 acre!
So, what' s the 'right structure'? Here' s the principles under which we operate award-winning New Terra Farm
- We are as natural as possible. We don't use chemical pesticides or herbicides or fertilizers in our market garden, and our livestock animals get only organic feed.
- We sell all our farm produce directly to our end customers. We don't believe in 'middlemen'; we like to get to know the people who we are market gardening for.
- We don't raise 'confinement' anything. We don't believe in raising animals in cages, all our livestock animals are raised on pasture.
- We don't grow anything unless we can sell it. In fact, in our award-winning small farm marketing and management model, just about everything on our farm is sold before it is grown!
For example, our first year market gardening we found 16 families that wanted to buy from us (we were operating in a Community Supported Agriculture model.) That first small garden was only about 6,000 square feet (1/7 of an acre) but we sold about $9,000 worth of veggies from it, and another $4,000 worth of organic pastured pork and chicken, too.
The next year, we doubled the size of our market garden; in year three we tripled that again! And our garden was still less than 1 acre.
What's the secret to growing a successful market garden? Well, just like any other business, there is a business cycle that you should follow. In other words, if you do things in the right order you can have a thriving business on your small farm.
What is the 'business cycle' you need to follow? It's simply this: You must do PLANNING before MARKETING, MARKETING before MANAGEMENT, and MANAGEMENT before PRODUCTION. It goes like this:
- You plan your business, setting targets for sales and income, estimating expenses and calculating your price to make a profit.
- Then you market your business, to find enough customers who will pay your price to generate your income
- Then you put the management practices in place to make sure you can meet those customers expectations
- And finally you start production to deliver the goods
Find out more about our market gardening model
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