By Annelle Durham

Ten years ago we began market gardening on 20 acres in a rural county in Northern California. We now have 4 acres designated for vegetable production, 5 acres of wine grapes and small plantings of apples, plums and table grapes. At the end of eight years we had a thriving, 90-member vegetable subscription program in place, but in getting there we had sacrificed something we wanted to regain, a healthier balance between work, income and leisure.
Our subscription program ran for more than six months a year in an area with only a little over three frost-free months. We had very little time off, hopefully cleaning up the garden by the end of December, and then turning around and beginning again in January with seed starting. We grew 2 acres of vegetables, and needed at least two additional people in order to get most of the work done. On the plus side, we were refining the art of successful farm events, and loved having our customers come to the farm. The vineyard, our farming retirement plan, was often neglected due to the pressing needs of the vegetable operation. We enjoyed our work, but we were experiencing significant amounts of stress. We needed 12 to 15 different vegetables ready for harvest every week for half the year, we relied on apprentices for our labor needs. And, to top it all, we weren’t making much money.
Basic expenses for the vegetables were $26,000 and our gross income was $33,000, giving us a net of $7,000. That did not meet our needs for long-term sustainability. Earning off-farm income was difficult as the subscription program took almost all of our time. We could get bigger, or we could get smaller but we couldn’t afford to stay where we were, nor did we want to give up growing mixed vegetables altogether. Bigger had implications we were not interested in, such as hiring and managing more help and marketing outside of our local area. What we thrive on is the actual work of growing the plants, and the direct marketing of good food.
We decided to scale down, and two years into it we have no regrets. This last season we grossed $15,000 on slightly less than a half acre of vegetables and the same few fruit trees and table grapes we’ve always had. That is almost half the money on a quarter of the land, an indication that we must be doing something right (or that we were really doing something wrong before!). This season was better than last year, our first down scaled garden, when we only grossed $11,500 and farmed just under half of one acre. We tightened up even more on our crop selection and quantities grown and improved our yearend figures and overall satisfaction with the garden.
A goal in our down-scaled plan is to have a small enough garden that we can do all of the work ourselves. A half-acre garden seems to be just right for us. We like the freedom of not having to manage workers on a regular basis. This last season we were on our own except for a brief three weeks when two WWOOFers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) joined us. There was plenty for them to do, but their presence, or absence, was something to enjoy, not something to worry about. Having young people around can definitely spice life up, but sharing our home with apprentices for 8 to 9 months of the year had its drawbacks. Several summers we had five young people sharing our kitchen with us. Not having to cook dinner every night was great, but the arrangement did have its downsides. Having WWOOFers drop by for a few weeks gives us the best of both worlds; an occasional boost of youthful energy and enthusiasm balanced by plenty of privacy and quiet.
We had an early greenhouse cucumber crop to jump-start the cash flow, but other wise we planned to be at the farmers’ markets for only three months, August through October. With our unheated greenhouse we were able to begin selling cucumbers by mid to late May. In a little over two months, we sold $1,800 worth of cucumbers. All sales were to three local natural foods stores. The greenhouse is 50 feet long and we plant four rows of trellised cucumbers. As a fall compliment to the cucumbers we have a late planting of greenhouse tomatoes so that we can take advantage of the high prices they bring in November. We expect the tomatoes to bring in around $600, not as much as the cucumbers but still welcome money and good use of our greenhouse. This marketing plan has only three months of intensive marketing instead of six. An additional benefit of this schedule is that we have fewer months of frost protection in the spring. Also, we have the hope of getting the garden cleaned up and the cover crop in before the winter rains.
Our crop selection criteria have tightened considerably with the scaled-down garden. We don’t grow anything that we can’t gross at least the equivalent of $20,000 an acre on. Neither do we plant anything that takes excessive time to grow or harvest. And, perhaps most importantly, we plant only those crops that grow well given our individual growing conditions. There are always exceptions, and in this case corn is one of them. We sell our corn for $.60 per ear, but that still doesn’t make it profitable enough to meet our financial criteria. We like to have a long season of corn for our own use and have found it advantageous to have extra to take to the market, as it is often the first thing that customers look for. The corn attracts them to our table, but it is a rare customer that leaves only with corn.
Currently our melons, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and cucumbers, which amount to over half the garden, are grown on plastic mulch. Only the corn, potatoes, and winter squash need to be weeded and once those plants start growing they can out-compete the weeds. By far, we grow more melons than anything else, harvesting around 400 pounds of melons every week between August and October. One lesson we learned well while running the subscription program was the importance of timing the succession plantings to neither overlap nor spread out too much. Two of the adjustments we will make next year will be to increase our potato crop and to cut back on the eggplant. Seasonal modification and fine-tuning are required as we pursue the elusive perfect crop mix.

Return to farmers’ market
Selling again at farmers’ markets after a hiatus of five years, we discovered that our marketing skills had gotten rusty. Through trial and error we found several techniques that worked very well for us this year. Our melons sold three or four times better when we had samples available. The samples did two things, they brought the customers to the stand, and then reminded them of how good a melon can taste. At the last two markets when we were out of melons we offered plum samples and plum sales shot way up.
Our teenage daughter is our main assistant at the markets. Last year when we were just getting back into the swing of the farmers’ markets we needed only one adult to run the stand. This year we were averaging almost $450 a market and we needed our daughter to start selling but she was somewhat shy and reticent, until we discovered the value of commissions. On a commissions basis she became a terrific sales person, smiling, friendly and attentive. She makes a base amount no matter what sales are, and earns extra when sales exceed $350. This helps keep the farmers’ markets fun for both of us.
Our last marketing strategy was to make an eye-catching winter squash display when our squash sales were in a slump. We filled a water trough with squash and in the middle of it we put a gourd decorated with eyes and a sheepish grin. It was a crowd stopper; everyone noticed it and did a double take. They would walk over to check out our creature creation and then make a purchase. At the trough we had a large sign advertising the same quantity discount that had been in place since the second week of our winter squash sales. With the new display and signboard the squash finally began to sell. In fact, we sold out before the last market, while our first sales estimate had us “squashed” under the expected surplus.

Revenue per acre is up
Our revenue went from $33,000 for 2 acres ($16,500/acre) to $15,000 for a half acre ($30,000/acre). In other words, it almost doubled on a per-acre basis. Our expenses are about a third of what they were, but our net from the vegetables is nonetheless still a little lower than before. Labor, or lack of it, is no longer an issue for us. We now actually have an off season, which happens to coincide nicely with when we need to be working in our vineyard. In addition, off-farm employment is now possible and we have thereby been able to increase our net family income to a more reasonable and hopefully sustainable amount. Thurston is a California Certified Organic Farms (CCOF) inspector and can work as a substitute teacher. I work two very part time jobs, cooking at the local health food deli two mornings a week and working a couple of half days at the county visitor information center. This has, among other things, allowed us to reinstate the concept and practice of going away on a vacation, a great benefit in the eyes of all family members.
During the growing season we still become completely immersed in our garden, but it is now an almost manageable size. Like garden planning, seeking balance in our lives requires continual evaluation and adjustment, but now at least we feel that we have a workable general plan and only need to refine the details. We want to grow our mixed vegetables and have a life too!

Annelle Durham and Thurston Williams are the owners of Clover Creek Family Farms in Upper Lake, California. They can be reached at annellegirl@yahoo.com.