Description
The revised and expanded, full-color edition of Market Farming Success offers an insider’s guide to market gardening and farming for those in the business of growing and selling food, flowers, herbs, or plants. Condensing decades of growing experience from every part of the United States and Canada, Lynn Byczynski—founder of Growing for Market—identifies key areas that usually trip up beginners and shows growers how to avoid common obstacles.
Market Farming Success offers an insider’s guide to market gardening and farming for those in the business of growing and selling food, flowers, herbs, or plants. Condensing decades of growing experience from every part of the United States and Canada, Lynn Byczynski—founder of Growing for Market—identifies key areas that usually trip up beginners and shows growers how to avoid common obstacles.
This book differentiates between market gardens, market farms, and vegetable farms, and offers a concise and useful overview of how to find land, select and grow crops, acquire appropriate equipment according to scale, market produce, and tackle recordkeeping, insurance, and other business matters.
Focusing on factors that are common to market gardeners everywhere, Byczynski offers professional advice that includes:
• How much you will need to spend to start a market farming business;
• How much you can expect to earn;
• Which crops bring in the most money—and whether or not you should grow them;
• Essential tools and equipment you’ll need;
• The best places to sell your products;
• How to keep records to maximize profits and minimize taxes;
• A discussion of organic practices, techniques, and certification; and,
• Tricks of the trade that will make you more efficient in the greenhouse, field, and market.
This new Chelsea Green edition of a 2006 classic is greatly updated and expanded, and includes full-color photos, charts, and graphs, plus many inspiring and instructive profiles of successful market farming pioneers. This book will help the aspiring or beginning farmer advance quickly and confidently through the inevitable learning curve of starting a new business.
About the Author
Lynn Byczynski is the founder of Growing for Market, a monthly magazine for market gardeners and farmers published since 1992. She is the author of The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower's Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers (Chelsea Green, 2007), and The Hoophouse Handbook. She is the owner of Wild Onion Farm in Lawrence, Kansas.