Mark,
You had such an exciting post, I couldn't help but jump in. I wasn't going to, I have been lurking here for quite some time. I grow lots of veggies and would love to sell them. Trouble is the closest market is over 30 miles away and hardly anyone goes there. I have a dream of setting one up on the highway where there is lots of traffic. I just keep thinking no one would want homegrown veggies that are not perfect. Every year I give produce away and people say, Why don't you sell it? I might as well give it a try and see if I can make some money. This year I am going to grow greens of every sort I can get my hands on. Mixed greens are one of my favorites. Then I have all the stand bys, tomatoes, okra, green beans, squash, radishes, herbs, cantalopes. This year I want to plant some things I haven't tried like winter squash and other things. I have so many ideas I can't remember them all. LOL. I love growing hot peppers and am getting quite a collection of seeds put up. This is a rural area in Oklahoma and people tend to stick with the same ole thing and don't try anything new. I can't give my hot peppers away. But anyway wish me luck!

hello river22.
go with your dream!
your veggies dont have to look perfect, as long as they are bug free,fresh and taste great they will sell just fine.
i am not at all familar with oklahoma but i would think people would luv a chance to purchase fresh produce.
the fresher you present it of course ,the better.
maybe put your lettuce in a cooler with ice bags on bottom. greens wilt very fast in warm weather making them undesirable.
peppers will hold a couple of days and radish have to be kept cool and shaded. spinach is a little more forgiving! i cool mine in the morning by rinsing it in very cold water and keeping it under shade.
fresh looking is 10 times more important than physical size.
you can always sell small peppers 3 for a dollar and large ones .75 cents a piece.
i am so looking forward to hearing about your sucess this season. thanks,mark

river 22,
I know exactly how you feel. Last year was our first year selling at market. Before that we had a huge garden with enough extra to give away to everyone we know. We really wanted to sell some of our veggies but didnt know where to start. Someone we know told us about a small farmers market about 15 min. away. It was the perfect place for us to start out. Obviously we didnÂt make enough to quit our jobs (I wish we had), but we had a lot of fun and learned a lot too. I am so excited for next year! We have lots of plans to expand, and like you river22 I have got so many new ideas and things to try for this year (I have been trying to write them down) but it is hard to keep track of them all.

Since not as many people come by our market compared to a busier one, I think for us the larger the variety of veggies we have to sell the better (which for us is great since we love to grow everything).

Some of the things that did the best for us last year were: bell peppers (all colors), our heirloom tomatoes, beets, beans (our yellow ones sold the best), basil, corn, and scallions.

I think that the only things that didnÂt do well were hot peppers and grape tomatoes. We sold hardly any grape tomatoes (I was really surprised by that), but my brother-in-law is a butcher and he sells shish-ka-bobs and we sold them all to him for him to use on his kabobs. So that worked out ok.

Everything that did really good we plan to grow more of and also try different varieties.
Some of the other things we plan to grow are: lettuces, spinach, carrots, eggplant, potatoes, swiss chard, peas, onions, garlic, pumpkins, winter squash, zucchini, summer squash, radishes, cucumbers, herbs and of course we have our apples and pears. I think that is everything.

For us the unusual varieties or the things no one else had sold best. It seems that our customers love trying new things and so do I so it works great!

Last year we also sold zucchini bread, pear nut bread, apple pie and pumpkin pie, all of which sold very well. Basically whatever vegetable or fruit we had a lot of I tried to make some kind of bakery out of it.

I should stop now because I could go on forever. Good luck river22 I think you should definitely give it a try and have fun.

Thanks for the encouragement! I bought a bunch of seed today and am itching for the weather to get right.

Here is a picture of our table at the farmers market last year. Once again I can not wait till spring!

Hello Everyone,
My farm was fallow last year due heavy workload at my primary place of employment. However, the year before, I grew lots of greens (collards, mustard and turnip). I learned how to cook them too although I have eaten them all of my life. I made copies of basic recipes and made suggestions for using the greens. I live in Kansas City and a lot of folks do not use greens in their everyday cooking. In fact, some people turn their noses up. Like River22 in Oklahoma indicated, we tend to like to stick to what we're used too (but not me!). I've lived all over the country and been to many places outside this great country too and I've always enjoyed trying new things, especially food. Anyway, I had a huge following amongst the African-American community for my greens which are grown Certified Naturally Grown so there is no danger of chemicals or bacterial contamination because I only use well-composed ruminant manure. People started spreading the word about me and I get e-mails and phone calls for my greens. I always wash them and spin them dry and they are really nice. Anyway, now I have other folks buying the greens too, more the mustard than the collard and turnip. I passed out recipes for using mustard greens for instance, chopping it up and lightly sautéeing it and then scrambling it with one's eggs and some white cheese (delicious!)or using leaves of it on a sandwich to replace the prepared mustard. Here you get the crispy texture of leaf lettuce, the spice of the mustard and the vitamins and minerals that abound in mustard as opposed to the nutritionally barren, cellulose ridden iceberg lettuce. Some people have trouble digesting iceberg lettuce (the cellulose in it can cause gas) whereas mustard and most leaf lettuces will not cause gas because they are low in cellulose (yes I talk about that to my customers and all of them have appreciated it). I grew some beautiful salad mixes. An Italian mix and a French mix and people absolutely loved them. I actually sold some to a small raw restaurant. I had a large bed of spinach which people went crazy over, so I'm growing tons of spinach this year too. My radishes did not sell well and I had some beautiful cherry belles, hailstone (white) and French breakfast which one does not see around here often. I grew a ton of green onions (scallions) from seed and people were really excited about those. Green beans are something I'm definitely going to grow more of this year too. I had purple, yellow and green but the damned deer got them and I only sold 10 or 12 pounds before the 20 or so rows I had were devastated by the deer. People asked all summer for beans. I had okra too and people in the Kansas City area love okra. In gumbo, fried, you name it. Trouble is, the deer love the leaves too and they denuded 4 25 foot rows of red and regular okra. I probably only harvested a couple of small baskets before the plants were totally stripped. I'm going to set up deer barriers this year. Anyway, I had broccoli raab (rapini) which did well as a spring crop. Initially, I had to set out recipes on this because people are just not familiar with it around here. I love its almost nutty taste when you sauté it lightly in Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO), some bacon or ham and then serve straight from the stove. It's a beautiful bright green and goes well with just about any meat or cut out the meat and eat as a nice addition to your vegetarian fare. I do well with squash until about July and then the squash bugs just take over. I have put out recipes for my patty pan squash. People love the shape and children find them interesting and there are so many different ways to cook these wonderful squashes. I sell them in all sizes, the small golf ball size, medium size and then large ones (that get away from me) for baking. I do well with zucchini and summer squash too and the big zucchini that get away from me I market as perfect for making zucchini bread. In fact, I introduced my own homemade zucchini bread.

I will be doing lots of heirloom tomatoes this year. In the past I did not realize how I needed to use drip tape to get the best results. People loved the little cherry, plum and grape sized tomatoes. Mix them up as rainbow tomatoes or market them as salad tomatoes. Not to sound like I'm stereotyping but suburban housewives went go ga-ga over this type of marketing. Also, I would mix different colors of tomatoes and have a picture of the colored slices on a plate as a serving suggestion (purple,yellow,red,orange,pink - sliced for burgers and arranged on a platter). People love it and you can sell them in pre-grouped packs and ask a little less than you would for the tomatoes individually. Believe it or not, small (golf ball sized) onions went well too and these guys were soooo sweet and tasty (I had to save a bunch for myself). I had Little Finger carrots too and people like baby carrots. I had good luck with purple top white globe turnips and yellow turnips. Beets didn't go well for me and I had Cylindra and Chioggia. One thing I learned at the market is you have to talk your stuff up to people. They love to hear about your farm and I always give them a little info about a particular vegetable. I always sell kale because my family loves kale. Until my brother married my sister-in-law 24 years I never thought much about kale except as a cheap decoration on a plate. But my sister-in-law can work magic with kale. I gave the recipes out and increased my sale of kale. Kale is an excellent source of vitamins and minerals and anti-oxidents. Some researchers think it may especially benefit cancer survivors and people whose family have a history of cancer. Anyway, one of the recipes is just kale cooked in a sauce pan with a couple pats of butter, diced ham, onions and a sprinkle of garlic. The other is my favorite. Kale torn into pieces, sautéed until it turns bright green in EVOO, ham, onions and some minced garlic. Turn the heat off and let the pan sit for a couple of minutes with the lid on. Then sprinkle to taste with balsamic vinegar. Absolutely fabulous! I have people asking for kale now who had never before eaten it in their lives. I grow 4 types of kale including the Lacinato which is sweeter and nuttier tasting and makes excellent caldo verde (an easy to make Portuguese savory soup)soup. Well, now I'm all excited again about spring and getting back to work on the farm. Thanx for bringing up the subject!

thank you everybody for your wonderful,interesting posts.
i have learned a lot reading these and everything else in this forum !! mark

Hello fellow gardeners
last summer I sold tomato, pepper,cukes, squash from my yard.
didn't make much but had great feed back.lots of repeat customers.
I only have a tiny garden 25 by 75 ft,
It was funny because towards the end just left out a can saying pay here.
sweet to find a 5'er. when i came home from work.
Just put a sign at the end of my drive way.
sold lots of perrenials this way in the spring.
now I'm doing fuchia cuttings.
hope to sell $3 ea.
just starting out but worth the risk of "what will the neighbors think"

teauteau,
How big is your growing area? You seem to grow a lot. Have you been doing this long? Do you do this full time. This will be my first year. I have a 14x8 ft. hobby green house, a 200 ft x 32 ft. hoophouse I will be putting up this March and 16, 4ft.x16ft. raised beds, plus 2-3 acres to plant. Trying to figure out where to begin.