Think you want to do weddings? Here's a reality check
The wedding flower business evolved over several years from small affairs, which I could do myself, to larger ones for which I had to hire additional designers. For a flower grower who is not a florist, the wedding flower business can be daunting. It is certainly stressful but most of the time rewarding. Merely selling […]
Farming in a vacationer's paradise
After 24 years of teaching high school, Louise Bennett was ready for a change, and she imagined that a small flower business would be the ideal second career. “I thought growing flowers and selling them on the side of the road would be so romantic,” she recalls. “Of course, it was so much work and […]
Keep bouquets upright at windy markets
At the farmers’ market where I sell cut flowers, I offer bouquets already arranged in inexpensive clear glass vases. I begin the season with a supply of three different sizes of vases to accommodate a variety of flower stem lengths and different size bunches. A sign on my market table announces that I welcome recyclable […]
Eat Your Colors! Use disease-fighting properties of produce in your marketing
“Eat your Colors” is a phrase used by the 5-A-Day produce marketing program that promotes the consumption of fruits and vegetables for their health benefits. This is a deeply interesting topic to me as a physician, consumer and an organic vegetable and fruit grower. As a family physician, I regularly see people struggling with real-life […]
Mesclun can still be profitable
Even the big box stores have gotten into selling mesclun, also known as spring mix. It’s a challenge to compete with them, and price isn’t the way to do it. Unless you are growing a large amount of mesclun, you don’t want to get into that pricing war. What we, as market farmers, want to […]
Letter from the Editor: Winter flowers
As Brett Grohsgal points out in his winter cropping article that begins on page 1, this hardly seems like the time to be thinking about winter. Yet you must, if you are going to try some frost-tolerant crops. Now is the time to figure out where to plant and what to try. It’s time to […]
Time to get ready for winter!
It is the middle of summer and most of us are swimming in a sea of tomatoes, cucumbers, cut flowers, the works. The planting is done and harvesting and income over the next few months might determine how well many of us do for the whole crop year. So why am I writing, and Growing […]