I've got a couple acres to play with and a wife who wants a career change and I was wondering if anyone knows of a list of profitable crops that can be grown for income?
I'm not looking for commodity crops like corn or soybeans, for the last 9 years a farmer down the road has been cropping those on my land, but I'm looking for specialty crops, perhaps heirloom or gourmet crops that can fetch a premium price at farmers markets or sold to fancy restaurants (we are only an hour from downtown Chicago).
I'd like some gourmet perennials, possibly some varieties of blackberries or raspberries, also asparagas? The questions are WHAT varieties are the highest quality gourmet types for income production?
I'd also like some gourmet annuals such as types of squash blossoms, heirloom or gourmet tomatoes, peppers and french beans. I would also consider herbs, unusual flowers and plants such as varieties of lavender, hostas, etc.
Any help, suggestions or insight would be greatly appreciated. Also, how much income can a market gardener produce from about 3 acres?
Sounds like a vast array of home grown products you have in mind.
Does your wife have any horticultural experience?
Perhaps the sequence of events should start with finding the market and what it will buy. Then the type of land and growing conditions for various plants must be accessed. Follow this up with the ability to start the plant sets indoors and the ability to overwinter perrenials. Consider the lenght of harvest time and labour involved for each different species. Storage capability for harvested product may also be taken into consideration. Delivery of the product must also be factored in.
There is really no answer to your original question's as the market will determine what is produced.
Sort of a lot of negatives here but as incenative one of Alberts largest Green House operations started with a young mother with several young children in tow selling vetables door to door from the back of a p/u.
Access the situation, determine the requirements, factor in variables and be prepared for lots of outdoor time looking after the garden.
And most of all have patience. Aquiring Markets and the skill to supply them does not happen overnight.
We are both avid gardeners and have landscaped the 12 acres we live on with minimal outside help. The land is not an issue as we have successfully grown and divided our own plants for years, we know what decrative/flowering plants work well and what don't on our land, and as we have high land, low land, fields, and trees, we have various soil conditions and micro-climates that can be used for production of various types of plants. We also have access to several local farmers markets where we can sell produce, flowers and plants if we can't build up enough volume selling to restaurants. I own a fleet of trucks, so access to transportation is not an issue, we already own tractors, implements (although this would be an excuse to buy more) etc.
We've thought about this but have not worked up a formal business plan. We almost purchased a small garden & pool center about 2 years ago but the schedule of a retail store operation did not fit our lifestyle. Long hours are not the issue, but the lack of any flexibility in the schedule was our deciding factor.
Our biggest questions revolve around the specific crops themselves. If I was a rancher I would raise venision, quail eggs and pheasant because they each bring a premium price over beef and chicken. I'm looking for niche species of plants. We collect some hostas and I know that you can get them for $1 a plant for simple variegated species to $15 for a small unusual cultivar. In fact, we probably will grow some hosta, but only the ones you normally can NOT find at the traditional garden centers. Lavendar is nice because there are dozens of varieties and can be used for flowers, flavoring and for crafts/sachets.
So I'm back to my original question, does anyone have any suggestions on varieties of plants to produce that would fit the gourmet categories of produce that are not commonly grown?
Expensive plants are usually expensive to produce or have limited demand, you can't assume that you'll have high margins based on the selling price. Check your farmers markets and see how much of the expensive items are being sold. I sell at two farmers markets and do better with the middle of the road items than the expensive items. I've also found that for my markets I need to have a truck full of different items to make it worthwhile. There just isn't enough traffic at my markets to enable me to specialize. At my markets, the guys with the hand crafted exotic and expensive produce probably sell <$100 per market day, while the people with good quality fairly priced familiar fruits and vegetables sell substantially more than that.
For me, the best items are:
> raspberries - high margins, but very short shelf life and labor intensive. Don't plant/pick more than you can sell in a day or two.
> tomatoes/peppers - good yields, easy to grow, high demand, great early season pricing, mediocre main season pricing, OK shelf life. If they don't sell at market I can usually sell them at the farm stand
> lettuce - easy to grow, high demand, good pricing
> new potatoes - this was the market surprise, pricing was much better than expected for quarts of new potatoes. We dug a weeks worth at a time through the market season and did OK.
For the crops like tomatoes and peppers, do you search out any specific type of varieties? Specifically are you selecting high producing varieties or are you selecting varieties for flavor? I can get tomatoes at any grocery store, but I can only buy ripe brandywines at the farmers market.
And how many varieties of tomatoes do you grow? We are looking at early, mid and late season tomatoes, so we always have ripe varieties to harvest. Within each of the ripening periods, I figured on several varieties of cherry (different colors) as well as several varieties of regular tomatoes (different colors and shapes).
You mentioned potatoes. Again, I was looking at several types from Russian Fingerlings to Blue potatoes, but I had intended on staying away from the traditional supermarket varieties.
Perhaps, we need to rethink things and offer 60% traditional produce and plants and then intermix 40% of the more exotic and unusual varieties. We don't need the income, most of the property is paid off, but we would like to see some fruits from our labor, have some fun, and see if the hobby can be made into something more than a hobby.
What about greenhouses, starting seeds on a large scale, etc. . . how are you doing that or do you plant right into the ground? Are you using a mechanical planter behind your tractor? Do you use organic methods (we plan to) or herbicides/pesticides/chemical fertilizers? NY has a shorter season than I have, but probably not much shorter (we are zone 5) so how do you handle that?
Every area is different, but in my area I did better with tomatoes that look like they're from the store than with the heirlooms. I planted 7 varieties of tomatoes last year and the ones that sold the best for me were pints of Sweet Chelsea cherry tomatoes and quarts of Jet Star. My two heirloom varieties had poor yields and didn't sell real well at market. I ended up either leaving a lot of the heirlooms on the vine because it didn't pay to pick them, selling them as green tomatoes or in 1/2 bushel boxes as canning specials. There was one vendor hawking his Brandywines at $2.00/lb. He did OK with them, but probably only sold 20lbs or so on average each week.
You'll probably laugh, but my best potato was Yukon Gold. They looked good in the basket and people were buying a quart or two every week for potato salad. For my area, if I wanted to sell more than three or four quarts of something like fingerlings or Blue potatoes I would have to sell to restaurants because at market most people would either decide they were too expensive or too unfamiliar to try.
The 60/40 mix might be a good idea for your first year. Thats about what we did and I was surprised when most of our sales were with the tried and true varieties rather than the heirloom or fancy stuff. If I was a little farther south and sold at the Ithaca market, my experience would probably be very different as that market is much more upscale than my 2 markets and high priced exotics do well there.
I direct seed most items with a walk behind seeder. Tomatoes and peppers are transplanted. I started them under lights last year. This year I have a small, 12X18 greenhouse that I will use for my transplants. With the greenhouse, I'll also do succession planting for lettuce to eliminate up to two cultivations and thinnings. If the greenhouse works out, I'll put in a bigger house for 2005.
With the exception of sweet corn I planted everything in 4' wide beds last year with 4' grass strips between the beds. I use a tractor pulled 50" rototiller to prepare the beds and Planet Jr wheelhoes for cultivation.
We are not large scale at all. Last year we had 1 1/2 - 2 acres planted in vegetables and ~1,100 row feet of raspberries that were bearing.
OK this might sound silly, but as a businesman who sells things for a living, I have found my sales staff sells more when I provide pictures and details. So my idea all along has been to provide pictures and a little story about each vegitable, fruit or flower to educate people about them . . . hoping to drive up the demand despite a slightly higher price.
Depending upon your market it might work, especially for the higher priced items. What I have found is that my average sale is <$5, and that at peak times our contact time with a customer, from Hi to Thank you with a bag of produce is about a minute.
I guess what I am getting at, is make sure your sales strategy will work in the limited stall space you will have and provide sufficient sales to justify the time you'll spend at market. For us, two things that have worked are free samples and talking up the produce - when someone buys one thing offer a sample and suggest they try some complementary items like cherry tomatoes with their lettuce.
Bob, I don't know much about growing a sales crop,But the tobacco farmers here in maryland besides growing corn and soybean have started of all things started growing "bokchoy" and the rumor is resturants use lots of it..just a thought you might what to see if it has any basis in your area [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] couldn't hurt; should be fairly easy to grow
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