Farmers Market Report

 The spring like weather brought people out in "droves." Now keep in mind that ours is a small, rural county with just less than 3K folks and a traffic jam is five cars ahead of you in the turn lane. Our farmers market isn't huge by any stretch of the imagination, yesterday's count was 10 tents, but still the twenty-five folks that stopped by our tent, we considered it a successful day because all twenty-five purchased from us.

What we took and sold...

• Two flats of cabbage, lettuce, broccoli/cauliflower/Brussel sprouts and 3 pots of of preplanted carrots (19 carrots in each. We sold them all.
• Four preplanted cutesy recycled soda bottles of rosemary and oregano. We sold them all.
• Eight dozen free range eggs. We'd brought ten. Mel also handed out contact cards for future sales.
• Four kitty cat planting pots made from recycled vinegar bottles and one donkey planter fill with pansies. Leaving one kitty planter, five puppies, five piggies, five chickens to take home.
• People were fascinated by my spinning plan. Like the commenter last week, they'd never seen it spun before. They liked the product after fingering it imagining how it would feel to work with. This sold 8 skeins of tan, gray, and white plarn out of the twenty we brought and two I'd made there.
• But from this demonstration, it also sold three medium size and one large market bags our of the ten we carried with us. Mel was crocheting one in between helping customers.

So all in all, it wasn't a shoddy day. We had four hours in the sunshine, interacting with people, getting to see our friends (other vendors)and Sold quite a bit that we'd brought.  I connected with my certified organic grower friend of years past and we swapped some seeds to start for summer. He grows a ton of different peppers and Asian eggplant each year that I buy each year. But then, he's got twenty acres on his farm too.

I'm also thinking of next year's market. When we finish one of the tiny houses, I get it inspected and the certification for selling pickles and jams. Another source of revenue for this homestead. Lord knows, we've been blessed as far as fruits grow that we've planted or grow wild one our property to provide a few jars to sell. I know all about the prep area inspections from working in restaurants. Cukes and other vegetables don't take that much space. Each fall, I make ten gallons of apple cider vinegar to start with. We made enough to cover our costs and our membership fee for the market for the year from this one day too. Our cash expenditures to make to sell the items were minimal just some paint and time.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo