We have been really moving carrots this year. I was the only one who had them. I am hoping this will mean I can hold more customers into the spring and summer with carrots. Only time will tell.

This post was edited by jrslick on Wed, Feb 4, 15 at 0:46

thats good to hear. you work pretty hard. how is it with the walk in cooler?

I love the walk in cooler. I wish I could have had it years ago. Everything seems to be keeping much better and I can't wait until next year. I am planning on planting many more kinds of root vegetables to store and sell into the winter. I have some lettuce heads from a month ago that look as good as the day I picked them. It was an accidental experiment.

Only issue I am having is I have to run a small heater to keep it from dropping below freezing when it gets down in the low teens and single digits. I need to invest in a better plug in thermostat. I have been using the thermocube, but it has been somewhat unreliable.

The best thing is having everything in tubs and totes sitting in the cooler ready to go the night before. My loading up time is measured in minutes, not tens of minutes.

What is its effect on your electric bill? My electric bill at the farm building last month has me scared that I can't afford to use my walk in much.

I can't find last months statement, but my wife made some crack about how our electric bill went down last month despite the cold weather and walk in cooler operational. I will have to find it and report back.

Thanks. Our building is now finally completed. Walk-in is also finally done and Cool Bot working. We keep the furnace, which runs on propane, at its lowest setting just to keep things from freezing. Water heater is electric, and the building is heavily insulated. We are only there on weekend afternoons this time of year and fire up the woodstove while there. Anyway, our electric bill has been running near $100, which seems really high for no more than we're using. I'm really wondering what it will be like this summer when we're staying down there and running air, fridge, lights, etc.

Turn that water heater off and see what happens.

Nice Jay! Any reason the veggies are all packaged up in plastic? Is that a requirement for this particular market? Because your summer outdoor market pics don't show your veggies pre-wrapped.

Are you going to sell veggie starts as well? I am looking to sell quite a few this year but I am undecided on 4" pots or 3" pots.

Cheers

Ripe Tomato:
To answer your questions, I pre-bag all our carrots and greens for the winter and summer. It keeps them fresher and easier to store, haul, sell and for the customers to take home. I have tried doing loose leaf heads just sitting out in a pile and after 30 min-1 hour they look terrible. I just slide them in a bag, open top and they stay much nicer.

I don't prebag turnips, daikon, watermelon radish, rutabegas and other roots as people want different amounts.

It is true during the summer months, I don't bag tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, potatoes, onions, or any other root, but I do pre-box cherry tomatoes. Most of those are sold by the piece anyway and I prefer to weigh out my tomatoes and have customers pick out what they want.

I do sell seedlings. I sell them in 2401 inserts. I usually only sell tomatoes and peppers, but this year I am going to add watermelon, cantalop, lettuce (people keep asking for it) okra, zucchini, winter squash, and maybe kale, broccoli and cauliflower. We don't sell tons, maybe 40 flats worth, but it does give me stuff to sell with the early veggies.

Jay

I located the November, December and January electric bills, these were the first 3 months with the walk in cooler running with the coolbot. When we compared the usage November was less than last year, December was more than last year (Christmas Lights?) and January was less than last year. That is encouraging news.

Jay

Thanks so much, Jay. That's encouraging. It's a little daunting to think of what I have invested in the farm and all the added expenses of new monthly bills, taxes, and insurance. Regardless, few would have operated as long as we have without what most would consider necessities. Having running water is a godsend, and we no longer have to hide in the truck while it rains. The wife likes indoor plumbing and not having 2 tons of squash in her spare bedroom.

Market today was just ok. Over $100 less than last month. I don't have veggies left. The thing I need to bring more of is my pizza crust. I have some real fans of it that buy me out. I will make a lot more from now on.

We had a market on Friday night. This will be our last winter market until March 28th. The building we have our market in is booked every Friday, Saturday and Sunday until the 28th. It will give me a much needed 6 weeks off. The market was down about $70, but I contribute that to the lack of purple and yellow carrots. I am out of them. I did have 90 bags of kale, chard, spinach, salad mix, and collard greens. I almost sold out, people were happy to see them.