Market closed a month or more ago, the holidays are coming and, yes, you could use more money! A Winter Holiday Market just might fit the bill.

Our farmers’ market has hosted a Winter Holiday Market in early December for several years and it has become a very good source of extra income. It provides a great opportunity to hone your value-added skills. You may have hoophouse-grown winter produce, stored winter squash and potatoes, and some other items to sell, and your already deprived customers will love you for it. But if you are going to the trouble to have a holiday market what else can you offer your customers? By planning ahead through late summer and fall you can offer a nice array of holiday gifts and/or entertaining ideas, many of which don’t require a kitchen.

Here are 20 ideas for you to contemplate now so that you can plan for next year:
•Garlic braids, always appreciated as gifts and you can make them as you have time.
•Dried herbs. These could be air dried or dried in a dehydrator. Pretty little herb jars may be purchased and can create a set of fresh culinary herbs.
•Wreaths. Think of drying your summer flowers such as larkspur, celosia, amaranth, etc. and adding in dried grasses and foliages. Sweet Annie is great in wreaths because the scent lasts so well.
•Gourd bird feeders. These are fun and fairly easy to make. There is a very nice book called “Gourd Craft” that provides the basics on working with gourds. You can add beads, buttons, colored strings, and raffia to decorate a plain gourd. When you are done. wax with carnauba wax and add a string for hanging.
•Dried chilies. These are pretty as decoration, even on a gift package. They are also welcome in a kitchen that is familiar with using dried chilies. They can be dried in the air or in a dehydrator.
•Dried tomatoes. They are easy to dry in a dehydrator and so versatile to cook with.
•Dried beans. These can be layered into canning jars or packed into cute tins. Add a printed recipe for multi-bean soup and you’ve created a great small gift for kids’ teachers.
•Pots of windowsill herbs. Young culinary herb plants in small colored pots brighten any winter windowsill.
•Herb kits, which could be tiny dabs of culinary herb seeds, nice little pots, and a small bag of potting soil for the do-it-yourselfer to enjoy.
•Farm prints. If you have a digital camera and a colored printer you might be amazed at the photos that you can take on your farm. Close ups of broccoli with dew on the leaves, your favorite Araucana hen, a field full of sunflowers, a nest of baby mice you found in the hay – we see things like this every day on the farm but our customers don’t. Try taking some fun digital pictures and download them into your computer, crop out those weeds in the corner, and print them on photo paper. Add a simple frame and sell them. One of our market vendors makes her digital photos into cards by cutting the picture with decorative-edge scissors and gluing them onto folded card stock. An envelope completes it.
•Kindling bundles. Most of us have trees around our farms and kindling bundles are easily created. If you’ll check out the gift catalogs you will see pretty little bundles of wood, tied with twine and decorated with dried herbs, pine cones, and other burnables. A local grower made these last year and they were gorgeous and sold like crazy – for somewhere in the $15 a bundle range!
•Gift certificates. If your customers love your farm produce they would probably like to purchase a gift certificate for a friend to introduce them to your wares. These may be easily formatted on a computer and printed in color on good paper. Leave the amount open and fill it in as the customer chooses. You might want to include a picture of your farm on the certificate (or your dogs or kids – something personal that our customers like to see).
•Handmade herbal soaps. If no one else is selling soaps you might want to try it. I sold glycerin-based soaps for two years at our market and they did well. There are good books with easy instructions for working with the “melt & pour” ingredients and you may easily add your own touches. It’s a good “off-season” project and if they don’t sell, you’ll use them up!
If you do have a certified kitchen to use that opens up more possibilities:
•Holiday breads. Many of these will freeze well and will even stand refreezing for later gift giving or entertaining.
•Cookie trays. Offer a nice assortment of homemade cookies on a cute metal tray. They, too, can be frozen for later giving or enjoying. Or if your market is too early, try taking orders for cookie trays to be delivered a couple of weeks later.
•Canned applesauce, leave it slightly chunky and add very little sugar, if any. It looks so yummy in the jar and can be added to gift baskets.
•Canned salsa, obviously made in the summer when tomatoes and peppers are coming out your ears. If you don’t have a good recipe check the Internet but – a word of caution – test it before you make a cauldron full!
•Canned jellies, jams, pickled beets, pickles, relishes. These are all welcome small gift items that customers can tuck into a basket.

As you prepare for the winter market, remember that your customers will be in a holiday “buying” mood and you can enhance that mood by adding little touches to your presentation. Trite as it is, the old red and green always work to remind buyers of the holidays. A sprig of green tucked into a ribbon tied around a jar of applesauce will help it move faster. Look through gift catalogs for ideas to enhance your items or stroll through a craft store for ideas. Presentation is everything, especially at this time of year when there is so much competition.

One last idea. Many of you may have enough items to put together a gift basket to sell. Your market also might buy some inexpensive baskets, which customers can fill from various booths. Tissue paper, ribbon, and cellophane could all be available for them to complete their basket right then and there. Thank heavens! Another gift finished!

Joan Vibert enjoys hearing from other growers about their value-added products. She can be reached at joan@windwalkerfarm.com