I don't have a cooler and have been doing market gardening for 12 years now. Yes, my first year was nerve racking. I had nothing for the first month of the season (ours is from first of May to end of October). I planted only what I would have grown for my family's consumption, just 2x as much. Sold everything and had to buy from other vendors.

You will learn as you go, just keep your eyes open and mouth shut, watch other seasoned vendors.

My market has already filled all of their spots back in March, so hopefully you will be able to have a spot to sell.

I pick usually the previous day, especially for the more perishable. The fresher the better.

Good luck with your first year.

Marla

It's good to be nervous - we've been doing this for years and I still get butterflies at the beginning of the season. Of course by the end all I can think is "come on frost!!". You'll be fine - as Marla said become a sponge and soak up all the knowledge from the people around you. I do not know where you are planning on marketing but around here (central Illinois) the markets we attend the vendors are pretty good people and are more than happy to help each other out. Granted there are some grumpies out there but most are good people.

As to the cooler - heat is the enemy of good produce. Some things are much more forgiving - root crops, cabbage, tomatos to some extent all are pretty tolerent. Some things are very sensitive - greens for example - and many vendors will pick them the morning of the market. The overall story is that once picked all fruit and vegies are dead and start to deminish in quality. There are some simple things you can do to help maintain quality. Keeping produce cool is the main thing. Just getting fresh picked items out of the sun can be a huge help. Even better if you have access to some type of root cellar or basement. If you are using a shed of some type make sure that you have air flow to keep the temps moderated. In the end you will pick most of your produce a day or so before the market to have the best quality you can. And experience will tell you what can hold and what can't.

Tom

NERVOUS !!! thats a understatement!!!

its saturday morning and im abought to open my first small road-side garden/flower stand today and what do i see on the TV GAS HITS $4.00 A GAL.!!!! im going to be sick..

We've been at $4 for about a week now. I've had a mini farmers market for the last 2 weeks. I had to raise my prices on my plants, but nobody has complained. I only raised them 50cts, but every penny counts. Either coming in or going out.

Marla

Thanks for the kind words. I went to the FM and filled out the application this morning. I had a look at everyone's stalls (and bought some goodies, of course). Our market isn't as sophisticated as some others so I feel a little better that I won't look foolish.

I think it will take a while for people to get used to using less gas and the price hikes that will ensue. I have never owned a vehicle myself - but I do ride in my boyfriend's (the guilt has worn off - I never drive it on my own. I know for some people driving less will be somewhat of a culture shock.

Things will naturally become more local. Which I think is a good thing.

glad to help.

Marla

magz88 you will be fine just bring someone with you so you dont feal so alone.....

you said "For some reason, I am ridiculously nervous! I am worried about my display"... well i have been the same way for weeks now!! but today was my frist day opening and i was a wreck!! i had a family freind come with me today and it helped alot!!! as the day went on things got easier and i became more relaxed and things seem to fall into place..

all said and done, im so looking foward to tomorrow..
you will be fine just dont try so hard and be yourself and things will fall into place..

LOL sounds like Dr. Phill.....

That's great to hear that your first day was successful boston3381! Good luck tomorrow.

It is normal to be nervous, you will do fine. this ain't brain surgery so your mistakes will not ruin anyone (including yourself)

Buy some coolers before you go to market. other wise you will lose around half the stuff you take to wind and sun. I would also strongly suggest an EZ-Up shelter to put up over the produce to shade it, it make s a huge difference (and it gets you noticed)

I know making purchases for your market garden seems weird but this is a business that you are supposed to pay tax on (if you make over $600, IIRC) and things such as coolers are write offs (keep all receipts). So get the coolers and if you get out of doing farmers markets you can always use them for other things.

I also assume you don't have refrigeration so that means things like lettuce, spinach, carrots and beets can be harvested no more than 24 hours before sale or they will be badly wilted (and will have lost around 60% of their nutrition without cooling ASAP). Tomatoes do fine with out cooling as do eggplant and a few other fruits but the vast majority of produce needs to be held at 32F to 38F in order to be of good quality 18+ hours after harvest.

A cool basement will help a lot to keep quality up but it will not replace a fridge. I remember my first two year without a fridge and how hard I had to work harvesting right up until leaving for market. I do not miss the 22 hour days.

Than I got refrigeration and life got a lot easier, the quality of my produce went way up and the waste went way down.

Your display is very important to haw well your produce sells - we had a vendor a few years back that had some of the best specialty potatoes at one of the markets we attend that was a total failure in marketing. He set cardboard boxes on the ground, chainsmoked all morning and dressed like he had just come from digging the spuds. His produce was very nice and reasonably priced but people took one look at his "booth" and shyed away. Was a shame as when you got to know him he was a great guy.

Over the years we have tried several different things - some work better than others. We started using small baskets for our display but they were not very efficient on using table space (tall and round meant people were constantly digging through to see the bottom and damaging the produce). We now use wooden crates that I build in the offseason but several vendors use pop flats or plastic trays which also work well. We also try to keep products in a logical order on the tables - new potatoes go next to the green beans, all the summer squashes next to each other, ect. It's on old marketing trick you see in grocery stores and works well. Signage is also important. We tried the old style sandwich board out front with prices but for soome reason people never looked at it. Now we use regular paper and MS Word to make signs on slips about 3" tall with the name of the item and the price. Those get laminated (one of the best investments we made was a simple hand crank laminator from Staples) then taped to the table right in front of the item. The signs are re-usable and as prices change we simply make a new tag filling the old one in the market box for future work. Your still going to get people asking what your prices are but it has helped cut a lot of that problem back.

Boulderbelt sugested getting ice chests to use - could not agree more. Try watching garage sales as they are a great place to find decient used coolers at a good price. We like the 48 quart size best. They hold enough to get the job done but are not too heavy to manage. He also sugested an EZ-Up canopy. Again right on the money. We have both 10X10 and 12X12's - the 12's are nice but not as durable as the 10's. We always (ALWAYS) always use tiedowns on the corners no matter how calm the weather is. The tent goes up then the tiedown goes on immediatly (concrete block and bungies) on all the legs. The Richland Market we attend is in a rather open area and has proven to be a canopy killer. I bet there were a dozen canopies blown loose there last year including on of ours when the stall next ot us broke loose and caught the corner of ours.

You'll have a blast doing this and all the little things will come to you after a bit.

Tom

There is a book you can buy or get from the library that has wonderful info for marketers called The New Farmers market by Vance Corum and others. I highly recommend it. My first year was really tough and set up was a nightmare. This is my third year and I still have challenges being a small grower with a lot of different stuff but it is getting better.

I believe "sell what you sow" is better than 'the new farmers market'. I met Eric while he was writing his part of the 'new farmers market', he asked me lots of questions to get my perspective as a grower.

Tom, I like your boxes, can you give dimensions? We are still haven't got the boxes built yet.
Marla

Tom,

Thanks for the explanation of using concrete blocks for tie-downs. We have been looking at canopies and rejecting them because of the guy lines. Actually using them to protect against the wind is brilliant.

We are thinking of doing a U set up with the bouquet pails on a riser on crates and then a row on the ground - then the veg at the back on the table.

They have cheap bar fridges on kijiji pretty often. Maybe we will get two of those. I don't have loads of capital but want to create a good name for myself with good produce.

I could probably look this up - but with refrigeration how many days could I buy on beets - radish - carrots butterhead lettuce? 2, maybe?

I just use a old regular sized refrigerator. Someone was throwing it away because they got a new one, and this is still works (for now). I can't put alot but it helps with green beans. I turn it to as warm as it will be, that just takes the heat out but doesn't keep it cold.

I don't keep radishes, beets or carrots. They are too easy to pull the last thing the day before (for morning markets) and rinse in cold water.

Marla

magzz, if you properly cool the veggies before going into the fridge you can buy around 17 days on lettuce (and other greens) and months on the roots as long as the greens are removed. If you leave the greens on the roots they go soft in the fridge after about 5 days

A home fridge will work well to start. I went from that to a wonderful 3 door commercial fridge I got for a song about 10 years ago (I had a CSA member who owned a couple of restuarants and gutted the kitchen of one and replaced all the reach in coolers with walk ins and had many to get rid of ASAP so we got ours at around 85% off used ). price) Now I would like a 10'x 15' walk in

You guys are great. I am getting so much information just going through all these posts. Nice to see Tom's photo of the setup. I am now on the lookout for crates although it probably means I am making something else!

I used tomato boxes for years, not as nice as looking as the crate, but served the purpose.

Marla

this is my set up and my husband