During the month of January the seed catalogs have been pouring in. While it's cold and snowy outside, it's great fun to sit by a warm fire with a cup of tea dreaming about this year's market garden and planning what to plant. Being very conscious of what our customers WANT is our first priority. We keep a list of their requests during the summer months of what they'd like to see us grow next year and we make every effort to bring those products to them at the market.
As with any small business, we must be very careful how we spend each dollar. Comparing shipping costs, keeping track of germination rates and where the best seeds were purchased, and each year trying to improve our knowledge and skill as growers. Sometimes we've had great success, bringing a product to the market that sells exceptionally well and other times we've brought in products that we thought would be good sellers, only to have very little interest in them. Last year we planted some very extraordinary hot peppers (12 varieties of them!), and while they were beautiful and delicious, we found it difficult to sell them because our customers were unfamiliar with them. Providing them with free weekly recipes and sending them home with free samples helped to build a market for these peppers. We will continue to teach people about these wonderful peppers at this year's market.
No comments:
Post a Comment