One season down

     After a lot of hard work, from planting seedlings and building bees boxes to picking and distributing hundreds of pounds of vegetables and gallons of honey, one season has passed.  It was not always easy.  In fact, it was almost never easy.  There was a lot to learn and even more to do.  Alicia and I did a lot of planning and really had no idea what to do or where to start.  How does one just know what everyone wants at a farmer’s market?  And how does one even get that far?

     There are many challenges to consider when starting to market produce or any type of goods to the public.  How much do you need?  Will they buy it?  How much will they pay?  How do we make them notice what we have over someone else?  Then one must consider how much he can sanely manage to care for?  There is planning for what and where to grow, how to control weeds, how to care for (trellis, prune, etc.) the plants, picking and packaging the finished product, and how to pay for it all.  It is easy to throw your hands up and let it all go, but if one does his best, he can make it all happen.

     I had ambitions of planting an acre of corn, two hundred tomato plants of 20 varieties, hundreds of feet of vines for beans, peas, and cucumbers but let’s be realistic.  There is only so much time in a day.  The commercial farmers make it look easy.  They have huge tractors with every type of equipment that has been developed over a hundred years, plus the use of several types of chemicals to make it all just work.  Most of us are not that fortunate starting out.

     There is definitely a sense of achievement to be found when looking back at a season of growing completed; especially when everything was done without the aid of all of the modern conveniences of chemicals and heavy equipment.  Controlling weeds was probably our biggest challenge.  It seemed as though the task was never ending but through it all there was much gained in relationships, knowledge of nature, and confidence in self from being a part of the Twin Towns Gardeners’ Market.

    To grow for a market one must first consider the time that he has to devote to the project.  I spent 20 to 40 hours per week working at all of the tasks on top of working a full time job.  Each phase has its challenges.  As one phase ends another is typically beginning, such as the transition between planting and maintaining the garden.  When planting, you must have place to for everything which even when mapped out ahead of time tends to morph into a new form.  As soon as some of the items have been transitioned from either a seed packet or a window sill to the garden, the plants already in the ground will need to be weeded to keep the roots from getting too deep.  When everything is in the ground one will have to start to trellis and prune what is growing.  Then, of course, there are more weeds to pull or hoe.  There are always more weeds.

     While hoeing one realizes that he needs to make boxes to sell the produce and then there is a table, a sign, a cash box….  It just keeps going.  And guess what so do you.