Growing For Market (part 2)

So, we decided we were going to take advantage of every available spot in the back yard to grow food. On paper it's possible to grow and sell enough fresh produce to make a modest living from 1/2 acre of intensive, succession planted raised beds with paths between.

For two years we basically supported ourselves on savings since our job was to bring a continuous supply of all this wonderful homegrown food to grateful, loyal customers at two or three markets a week.

Here are some pictures of some plant starts:


Perfect germination of tomato seeds for the 2005 market.


"Patty Pan" summer squash, basil and sunflowers hardening off.


A very dense bed of beets. They grew well, but I think they do even better with a wider spacing or thinned to have some baby beets and greens first, and then big ones later.


The above is an example of why you don't want to plant your tomatoes too early. We had to protect them from late spring frost by using every big pot, brick and old sheet we had, and then go out the next morning to uncover them and put everything away. This was WAY too time consuming and just because we wanted tomatoes a couple of weeks earlier than "normal".


We even used some of the "nice" sheets and pillowcases. We don't do crazy stuff like that anymore: life is too short.

Our main Saturday morning market was in Marietta (about 30 minutes away) and here's the big billboard for it.

Although we were not in charge, Patty collected all the vendor information and applications and kept in touch with them through the season. I rebuilt the website to look more or less the way it does now and took some pictures. (But we have had nothing to do with it since the end of the 2005 season.) We also went sometimes to real nice small markets in Kennesaw and Acworth.

As you can imagine, time was precious and we quickly became busier than ever. Here's a general weekly routine for only two markets, say Tuesday and Saturday:

Monday: Harvest, sort, wash and pack produce, prepare market materials, get ready to leave early the next morning.
Tuesday: Get to the market, setup, sell, packup, drive home, unpack, garden work.
Wednesday: Garden maintenance (planting, weeding, mowing, building, watering etc), domestic chores, take care of unsold produce from Tuesday.
Thursday: Garden maintenance, planning, cooking, everyday life stuff, contact vendors, update website.
Friday: Same as Monday, but bigger.
Saturday: Same as Tuesday but much bigger, go out for Mexican food (because we were hot, tired and starving), unpack, do some yardwork, one evening to relax.
Sunday: Sleep in, garden maintenance, housework, take care of unsold produce from Saturday.


The produce, which changed each time, got packed the night before market day and loaded in our trusty wagon early in the morning. Also the little truck was loaded with umbrellas, chairs, tables, plants, other coolers, ice and anything that would not fit in the car.


When we got to the market, the routine was to "set" the tables with the baskets that were ready to go and then to "stage" all the rest of the produce and coolers under or behind the table for restocking the tables as needed.

We were not really stressed out because we get along so well and the appreciation of some of our customers made it worth it. It was like a two year working vacation with many side benefits. However, my next post will describe the activity at the markets and why close to the end of the third year we decided to make some changes. Hmmm... we also made a rule that at "LogRock" there were no alarm clocks so that may be part of the reason we are not still doing it.