The purple beans are hard to sell, but taste wonderful. We now can any purple beans versus the green beans. The purple ones are more tender and will turn green when cooked.

Marla

A couple of years ago, I grew some purple beans. Blanched several pints but when I would fix them, the family didn't like them at all. Well, a couple of days ago, I was fixing some beast stew and needed beans. They were all I had left so of course they went into the pot. No one knew they were purple so they loved them!

Mike

I had a hard time selling them to the 'traditionalist' customers, but I canned them and the regular green ones. I used narrow mouth for one and wide mouth for the other ones. That way I knew which was which, but nobody else did. Family enjoyed the purple ones more, and they're alot easier picking, but the beans are purple within the green leaves with purple veins.

Marla

Mark,

I grow a lot of "different" vegetables. I grow these to get attention. Now I grow some of them because they taste better.

Different items that taste better, Napa Cabbage, Yellow Carrots, Cheddar Cauliflower, purple beans, haikuri turnips.

Many of these items are a hard sell, because people have never tried them. So, try them yourself. Give some recipes and they may work. I usually give a new item 2-3 years.

Also, try lemon cucumbers, unique and tasty!

Jay

Yes, I agree, give anything new at least 2 years of selling. The first year, I usually had to give some away. The 2nd year, some people were asking for them.

I still sell alot more of the 'traditional' looking veggies than the unusual.

Marla

I'm not sure about mixing the beans, but I sell several pints of cherry tomatoes as a mix. I put red cherry, yellow pear, white cherry and black cherry. Sometimes yellow plum, depending whether we have them. The mixed pints sell very well, people buy them so that they can try without buying an entire pint of something new.

Marla

Love the mixing varieties idea. As a buyer, that's how I fell in love with some different vegetables. I will always buy a bunch of something as a mix because that way I can try all of it. Last year I tried the purple beans, now they are my favorite - eat them raw, love the nutty flavor. That's also how I found Black Krim and Green Zebra tomatoes - the tomato lady made a few little baskets of a mix for $3. Once I find something new, I am a return buyer! Great way to get my kids to try new things too. Sounds like I should try the Hakuri radishes.

As a seller last year, I would always give my customers an extra apple - a type they didn't chose. Usually, by the next week they had tasted it and were back for more. I have this tree unknown variety that gives medium sized green apples. They are not pretty looking, sort of dull skin - but taste them and they are amazing. Many people buy what they see, if you give them a chance to try something new they will most likely be back for more.

I consider myself a conservative adventurer in the garden. Here are my new items this year:
Isis Candy cherry
Parisienne carrot
Mammoth Red Cabbage
Oregon Sugar Pod peas
Dragon Egg Cucumbers

Good luck and have fun!

The isis candy cherry tomatoes are delightful. They do split when really ripe and a rain comes in.

Marla

For me, trying new and unusual things is the fun of gardening. I raise around 15 varieties of heirloom tomatoes and over 40 varieties of winter squash. At first, everybody looks the oddities over. Later, they buy and come back for more. It seems I haul them around a few weeks then sell out in one. My squashes and pumpkins have both decorative as well as culinary appeal, and they keep for months. I'm also able to sell all their blossoms as an added bonus. The mixed cherry tomatoes also do well. Our favorite is Sun Sugar; my wife eats them like candy.

Marla and Tom, How was the conference? Would it be worth going to in the future??

Brook

Brook, to me the best part was meeting Tom and his sister. Alot of the information went over my head. I don't use chemicals, or at least not much. Alittle roundup and commercial fertilizer 12-12-12.

Just getting away, especially someplace warmers (10 degrees) was nice. Haven't been away from our home area for years.

Marla

It was a pretty good meeting. Like Marla said there were several programs that just did not have much info that we will use but in the ballance it was good. The presentation on the brown marmorated stink bug sure was scary - "this may cause the end of organic farming" was pretty much a direct quote. We are not organic but do like to limit what we use and this has us wondering what the next couple of years will be like. Usually they post the notes from the conferences online - I'll post a link when they get it up. Marla and her husband are a trip - wish we had had more time to visit and compare notes. Maybe you can make it down next year.

Tom

Hey Tom, did you ever get the plans for those boxes? If so, my email is available on my page, or I think it is.

Marla

Thanks, guys. I'm like you in that I use very few chemicals. Fruit trees are the exception. I was devastated last fall by stinkbugs, and my pumpkin patch just reeked with them. I can kill them in the nymph stage but cannot begin to get them all before they grow up. I'm hoping this hard winter will help out.

"Brook, to me the best part was meeting Tom and his sister. Alot of the information went over my head. I don't use chemicals, or at least not much. Alittle roundup and commercial fertilizer 12-12-12. "

Using even a little of Monsanto's Roundup is using chemicals! What other chemicals are you not using that you think you can say you don't use them?

Anywho,
It is hard to guess what different things customers will like. It seems like you have to gain their trust before they will try different things. I had rainbow and purple carrots in 2009 and sold few and in 2010 always sold out. Many people appreciated colored heirloom tomatoes and fingerling potatoes but I couldn't sell black radishes until I clipped the infor from a seed catalog and put it next to the radishes. That worked really well! I have been clipping the pics and descriptions of what I am growing in prep for market. Samples help too.
Sometimes it is chance as to who will come to market when you have certain things ready. I sold out on edamame the two weeks I had it due to just the right women coming then.
Some things that sell well for me are:
flower boquets for $2
leeks, garlic, sweet onions, scallions in early spring
red, gold and finger potatoes
broccoli and purple cauliflower
rainbow carrots
large but not too large heirloom tomatoes
sungold cherry toms
premade bundles marked $1 less as a kit, like pesto, soup, stirfry, and salsa
basil bunches
tomato, pepper and herb seedlings
big jalapenos after tomatoes are ready
mixed baby greens
snap peas
rhubarb
dill
anything that other people can't grow
baby summer squash

What doesn't sell well is:
peppers
squash/pumpkin with a decent price on it
organic corn with a decent price on it
purple potatoes
striped or purple beans or small picked beans
kohlrabi after the first 2 weeks
cabbage after the first 2 weeks
turnips, ruties, parsnips
brussels
apples

Minnie, you didn't read the entire sentence. I only use the generic version of roundup and 12-12-12 commercial fertilizer. I only use those 2 items, and deal with alot of weeds, since the 'roundup' is not used enough to control the weeds thru out the season. I usually only use it in the beginning of the season.

What you say don't sell for you, sells for me, except the purple potatoes. My customers don't like purplish mashed potatoes. I haven't sold Kohlrabi for years, since it doesn't want to grow for me. I sell between 2-3 bushel of large peppers every week, small peppers don't sell as well.

At my market, organics do not bring a higher price, so it's not worth my time. My grandkids walk thru out my gardens, hence the reasoning not to use pesticides at all. Of course, we haven't seen some of the 'bugs' that others have.

Marla

I did read the sentence. I don't think you should even mention the idea of being chemical free if you use commercial fertilizer or herbicide. I don't care whether you are or aren't chemical free but if you say you are you should be.

Marla,
using a commercial fertilizer is probably better than spreading some animals poop all over your produce with all the disease that has been turning up in animal feed and organic produce lately and most fertilizers are not considered chemicals as several are organically made so pay no attention to people who spout off about you saying you are mostly chemically free ...
Ive been told I could say my produce is chem free and you know how i grow mine.
Ray

OH! NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo! Not the Dreaded 12-12-12 bagged fertilizer. I personally have used it and glyphosphate for years and haven,t got sick yet or anybody else that I know.
Do not worry Marla we are behind you.

People that push their style of growing on to others make me sick.
Nickki

I would love to have enough compost the fertilize the entire farm, but with the acreage that I have, it's not feasible. I started out not wanting to use anything not approved for organic growing, but then after several years of 'foxtail' farming, I gave up. I use the 'roundup' generic to burn off the early weeds, then disc like crazy before planting. Only if the weeds get ahead of me, over 3 ft tall, do I use it again during the season.

I don't use pesticides for 2 reasons, the grandkids(ages 3-10) love to 'check' the gardens out, and they are allowed to do so at any time during the daylight hours. Plus we have a butterfly farm less than 2 miles away and the butterflies are taking over some of the pollination work that our native bees used to do. We don't have as many bees as we used to. We have several beneficial insects on the farm, and I don't want to destroy them either.

I'm comfortable about the way I grow things, and am not worried about what people say about it either. I'm getting too old to worry about little things like that. Now if someone that has never seen my farm and says that I don't grow anything, that burns me(not a pretty sight).

Marla

It's because of people like minnie that I try to avoid the "organic is the only way to go" threads, unless I'm feeling combative!

If I can find ferts like Tomato-tone (that are OMRI-approved) at a decent price, I'll use it instead of the 10-10-10 or another "chemical" fert. It's not that I am opposed to chemicals - I sprayed out potatoes with DDT for years, though we always saved a row that we harvested early, letting the others sit for at least six weeks if not three months longer. The truth is, there is such a thing as better living through chemistry, at least if one is not rich enough to pay $4 for a dozen of eggs from free-range, organically fed chickens.

Speaking about purple mashed potatoes - my son fixed some for a Christmas party. And he mashed them without peeling them first, or using a mixer to turn them into pulp. Everyone loved them. I didn't grow them again but only because the yield was far less than Kennebecs or Yukon Golds but the seed potatoes were far more expensive.

Mike

My customers like the old-fashion red potatoes for most of the season, and then they change over to white ones for the fall. I do have a few customers that request Yukon Gold, which I don't sell, mainly because I don't like the taste. Plus the red potatoes are lower in starch, therefore carbs and it's better for diabetics. Amazing what you know and pass on, does for sales. I did the talk about vegetable spaghetti squash during the Atkins phase and now I need at least 20 full bushels just to make it thru the season.

Marla

I guess I am used to being on gardening forums where everyone is pretty chemical free- idig my garden, OG mag, homegrown goodness, local harvest.
Anyone can grow however they want, but if someone says they are chemical free they better be or don't say it! Just growing vegetables doesn't make you chemical free or organic. Besides why bother using fertilizers anyway; you should feed the soil, not the plant.

I cannot possibly understand why anyone would stand up for chemicals. I am not a hemp-wearing vegan but instead feel the best way to garden is the way things used to be done when people relied on the food they grew. I garden old-fashioned not with expensive OG versions of the same stuff commercial growers use. And I do not support Monsanto. The only people that do are ignorant of who they are and what they do to people and farmers.

I garden the same way as my parents and grandparents did, except the 'roundup', and I don't use the chemicals that they did use. The older generation, older than me, used alot of chemicals, especially pesticides, in the gardens. I can remember back in the early 70s, Amway brought out a Bug Spray that you could actually use and be able to pick produce within 24 hrs, it was MOST unusual for the times. My mother sold Amway, and she was able to sell alot of cans of Bug Spray just for that reason.

BTW, I'm 55 and have been gardening since I was in a bassinet, according to my mother. After the bassinet, she couldn't keep me out of the dirt. Born farmer, I guess.

Marla

Mike,

I have had the exact opposite with the Purple Potatoes and the Red Fleshed ones, like Mountain Rose. They outproduce the Yukon Golds and Red Norlands, hands down, not even close. I actually will plant 1/3 more Yukon Golds because I can not get the production per plant up, so I plant more plants. Also, they have so few eyes when you are cutting them up.

The Red Norlands are good for me and I probably grow more of those than any other. I have 200 plus pounds of seed potatoes sitting right here beside me. The grocery store sells them in the spring and I can get them cheaper from them than ordering them and shipping them in. I just buy the whole 50 pound bags from them.

Interesting talk about fertilizer and what not. I don't use sprays, unless they are organic sprays. My kids will go out to the garden and get snacks all the time. I also will grab a snack when I am working and don't want to go inside to wash it up. A quick wipe of the shirt and away it goes.

I do use compost and some fertilizer and think that there are some really great organic methods out there and I use some, but what it all boils down to is you do what is right for you.

I do spray some insecticides. An example would be a Blister Beetle attack on Potatoes. They can wipe out a huge area in just a matter of a few hours. One quick spray with Seven and they are all gone in a few minutes. I usually flag off that area and I will dig those for us. I am always scouting, so they usually don't get too much! But I would never spray for Tomato Hornworms. Why, they are so simple to pick off. They are easy to spot and most the time you can catch them before they cause too much damage. I also don't spray for potato bugs. We just hand pick and the kids get involved. Do this for a week straight and the potato bugs aren't a problem.
Jay

little_minnie
"Anyone can grow however they want, but if someone says they are chemical free they better be or don't say it!"
What are you going to do if they do? Go cry in your soup? As that is all you can do since it is not any of your business what someone else says or does.
Ray

mike,
I must be feeling combative ,,I cant stand people like minnie who want to tell you what to do and say. She reminds me of the little old lady we had kicked out of our market because she would go around and when you were not looking she would stick her finger nails in your tomatoes and go back to her stand and when we caught her she tried to deny it.

Ray

Jay, I used to grow the Red Norlands until I tried LaSoda. Now I'll grow LaSoda before ANY other, with Norlands as my 2nd choice.

Marla

I have heard they are really good too, but I haven't been able to find any locally. The shipping really kills the seed potato shipping!

Jay

I grew about a dozen different varieties for years. Locally, I get Kennebecs, Red Lasoda, and Yukon Golds. I also get a couple purple/blue varieties online along with Mountain Rose,Huckleberry, Bintje, and German Butterball, and a few I've forgotten. Their astronomical price has halted my experiments. Recently, the only ones to survive our wet springs has been Austrian Crescent, which I have come to love. My potato harvests over the past three years have been abysmal, but I'm not quitting.

As for the organic thing. I used to be until the fanatics completely turned me off with their sanctimonious self righteousness. It's their religion, and only they hold the rights to heaven. I find that spraying once a season is more environmentally responsible than mowing, trimming, and tilling weekly to control weeds. I mulch and compost on a massive scale but cannot possibly cover five acres adequately. Like with religions, I believe we can coexist without berating others who hold a different view than our own.

Jay, I get my 'taters' at Rural King, and I noticed when I was in there today that they have their seed potatoes in for this season.

Marla

little_minnie
"Anyone can grow however they want, but if someone says they are chemical free they better be or don't say it!"
What are you going to do if they do? Go cry in your soup? As that is all you can do since it is not any of your business what someone else says or does.
Ray

In every state, at every market, you cannot claim to be organic, naturally grown or chemical free unless you are. Those are the rules to protect people who actually do follow those practices.
Maybe you go to a dentist who says he is pain-free but doesn't use gas, novacaine or ether. That wouldn't help you out would it?
BTW I don't ruin other people's produce. It is serious to claim at market that you are chemical free or that you grow everything yourself and then not do it. Consumers will not appreciate being lied to. Marla can say she doesn't use pesticides but since she does use chemicals it is false advertising in business to claim otherwise. It is only if you sell what you grow that it makes a difference. It is serious. Try saying you are organic in your advertising and see how fast you get cited for using that word and not being certified!

Minnie, If I said I was chemical free it was a typo. I only claim to be pesticide free. I also claim to be to use very little chemicals. Actually, I have only used (up to today)in the last 10 years, generic roundup, commerical fertilizers (very little, mostly green manure)and some rotenone, very very little. I have used wasp house for the wasps inside my house, but NOT within 50' of the gardens.

So Minnie, before this goes any farther, I am PESTICIDE free in my gardens, and have been for over 10 years. I will ONLY use PESTICIDES in the future IF there is a HUGE infestation of MAJOR bugs, like army worms. I have seen army worms cover the road in front of my house because they were crossing from one field into another.

Chemicals can be defined into several categories. Our market has now advanced into saying either, pesticide-free, herbicide-free or fungicide-free. Because nobody can be totally chemical-free, who can live without PLASTIC, which is a chemically made product.

Marla

Marla

Minnie, how long have you been commerically market gardening? I just wondered because in my first years, I was very pro-organic until the weeds starting taking over.

4 years. The weeds are absolutely horrible where I have bare soil. Even if they were worse I still wouldn't use roundup. I really won't buy any Monsanto product after what they have done to farmers and the general population.
I like weeding as long as I don't run out of time. I use a lot of cardboard and straw.

Marla, we have no problem then.

I've tried cardboard and straw, also carpet. I don't recommend the carpet at all. the weeds just grew thru it and then it was almost impossible to remove and it didn't break down. When I started out with only 1/4 acre, I was willing to try almost anything that was farm friendly. After I got to 3-4 acres, I found out that what worked for small acreage didn't work so well for the larger acreage. By my 4th year, I was only up to 1-2 acres, but now after 10 years my thinking has been forced to change. Still stay as 'safe' (people, bugs and land) as possible.

Marla

Mike and Ray,
Now that I have re-read this thread I have to say this.
1. I am not a religious organic freak. I feel that you can't be successful at growing by using some chemicals. When you do that you kill the beneficial insects and their environment. Plus it is not like using chemicals really kills bugs, disease or weeds down to nothing. Every year when the potato fields around me spray to kill their taters thousands of CPBs walk into my potato patch. Obviously they still had them despite their pesticides and they have weeds that don't die despite their herbicides and they don't feed the soil but use fast to break down fertilizers so their output isn't what it could be. I think it is more successful to try to establish a healthy eco-system by not using chemicals or monoculture.

2. So we are all market gardeners I take it. I assume that all of us hear the question- "were chemicals sprayed on this produce?" or maybe "do you grow without chemicals?" etc. Customers want to buy chemical free produce, that is why they come to the market. So for those who adamently uphold their love of chemicals, do you admit such to the customers? Do you tell them how you think people who want chemical free produce are crazies who are too fanatical about their food and that you couldn't grow any food without chemicals? My guess is you don't. You probably tell half truths about what you use and not defend your using chemicals/conventional farming. I guarantee around customers you guys would be all about using natural methods!

I tell my customers the same as I report here, you never know who is ghosting the forum. I'm in a rural area, with some old-timers and a few 'organic only' customers. I do have a few customers that know exactly which chemical they are allergic to and will tell me. If I don't use it, I'll tell such. If I do, or don't know, I tell them that also. I don't lie to my customers. I know not everyone wants to shop my produce, and that's fine. If they can't find what they are looking for, they come back to talk to me.

There are many more customers that just want FRESH, and know that the grocery store's produce is not FRESH, nor chemical-free unless marked 'organic'. Out of 70-80 vendors, we only have 1 certified organic (they're rather new) and 1 organic, but not certified. Both of these vendors, I personally know and have been around for awhile.

Some weed seeds can and will last up to 11 years in the ground, that's a long time. If you have bugs crossing over from the 'commercial' fields, you don't have enough buffer. My buffer has multiple beneficial insects along with the butterflies from the close farm. I leave some milkweed to draw them, they're monarchs.

Marla