For us farmers market season is just beginning. We have found for our current schedule with our full time careers joining the later markets gives us more opportunities to have that much needed buffer to get our farm ready for the season.
That doesn’t go without its own hurdles for us.. trust me when I tell you this every year we face new challenges! This year Mother Nature reminded us who was in charge with the continuous days of rain.
Here at the farm we prepare for market in December. We do this by sitting down talking about the opportunities we had and what we learned from them along with what we are going to do differently for next season. Last season it was a cover crop fiasco. We both just didn’t educate ourselves enough on the proper process. This caused a delay in us joining market on time. So this season we elected to not do cover crop and conditioned the beds differently.
We see value in learning from others in similar spaces. So we turn to organizations like Practical Farmers of Iowa. Where we meet like minded people who are running successful market farms. It is said that if you want to be amazing at something surround yourself with people who are doing what you love and are doing it better than you.
We also were learning and are still learning greenhouse growing. This year using what we learned last year gave us the ability to have earlier crops. The problem we ran into this season already was timing.. we had an abundance of an early crop with minimal on farm customer traffic and the timing was too early for our markets. However, a positive note is that we did have some customer traffic where our website was used to find our current product and purchased, then picked up at the farm. To me even though foot traffic was limited it was a huge win because it showed us people are willing to travel for quality locally grown food. We just need to dial in consistency and variety and I need to have more courage to push our products more.
Another topic we discussed in our off season was easier ways to provide a product to our customers on any given day without disruption from our day jobs while still providing flexibility to our customers. Is that even possible!? That is when we decided having a farmstand would be ideal here at the farm and meet those needs.
We recently brought in a building to start working this plan into existence. We also are working on a mobile stand that goes hand in hand with our farmstand. This is a priority for us this season. We also will be working on building visibility into what is available at the stand at any given time. Yep.. still working on that idea through our website! We then took this a step further and got our farmstand qualified for the Farmers Market Nutrition Program. This means we can accept the Farmers Market WIC checks right here at the farm. The only stipulation is we need to be present when using, along with the stand being physically attended for two hours out of the week to be considered as a qualified farmstand. Absolutely worth it!
For the sake of being transparent.. the biggest things for me at least with owning a market farm is the amount of directions you are pulled in. The farmstand is being placed at the top of our priority list right under the market garden. We also are committed to adding variety to the farm to bring in more customers. We are doing this by selling pasture raised poultry this season as well. That is for another blog!
I often wonder if we were in a more convenient location would we get more on farm sales.. then I realize that people are willing to travel for quality. We just need to step up our game this season to make it happen and bring consistency and options.
It amazes me each year what this market farm teaches us. I am finishing this blog after Ryan and I worked day and night on this garden. We didn’t want to stop but our bodies said enough is enough. This farm is our passion, our diamond in the rough.
Moral of the story… If it were easy everyone would do it.. That statement becomes so evidently clear when you find something you believe in that pushes you so far out of your comfort zone it isn’t even funny. I hope you have found your passion and if you haven’t look outside your comfort zone I can almost guarantee it’s in plain sight waiting for you. ♥️✌🏼-Jamie
Moral Of The Story 