Yes, marketing is everything, and I have comprimized and have stopped selling at the loval farmers markets and have gone to whosaling, well sort of to a few select local retailers. I have a certain product that sells for $ 2.50, I get $ 1.67 and the retailer gets, the $ 0.83 and what does not sell goes back to me and t he compost heap. I grow and harvest and deliver in bulk and I am done, I have even hired out the harvesting and delivering on many times as I have wanted to do other things that day.

Mark

I feel I make a lot more money, I do not load it, haul it, unload it, sell or do not sell and load it and haulit again. My good retailer has a lot of customers and they like the product and it does not compete with his line of product.

There's a big difference between my first and second years. You learn what sells well, what isn't worth planting, how to interact with customers and you get to know your regular customers. You learn what works and doesn't work for displays. Growing on a market scale has challenges a back yard garden doesn't have so there's a learning curve with that too.

There are tips to doing well at market linked below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Succeeding At Farmers Market

If you can arrange it so that you are delivering to a bunch of wholesale accounts in the same direction at the same time, that can really improve your gardening-to-driving ratio! (We'd all rather be gardening, right?)

Katey

My story: I work full time Monday - Friday. I make a decent wage for the low stress nature of my job, but this job will never take me anywhere. There is no ladder to climb. What I make now is what I will always make and the company is not interested in cross training me for any future openings in other departments (it's a tiny company). Don't get me wrong - they love me, but the service I provide with the skills I have only pays so much. This is not the first time I have been in this situation, it seems that most of my jobs had no room for advancement. I've been working since I was 14 and I am now closing in on 50 so changing jobs doesn't seem realistic. I have always had a weekend job (or two) just to help pay the bills and because I like to work. I am getting tired of working 7 days a week. My latest side business is a booth at the local flea market selling anything and everything from my garden. I sell mostly plants (herbs and ornamentals) and crafts (bird houses and feeders). I hope to include produce once that season starts. My house sits on .75 acres and is mostly shady so I grow and sell a lot of hostas and shade perennials. I've sold crafts before at booths at craft fairs but this is the first time I have manned a booth each and every weekend. It is doing quite well. I even think it is selling more plants than the other plant vendors. I work well with the customers especially the foreigners because I either speak some of their language or can communicate well with their broken English (I grew up overseas).

So everything is going better than I had planned. But, am I crazy to start daydreaming about quitting my day job or even switching to part time? Currently after selling for the past month I am bringing home 1/4 of my regular jobs paycheck. Not sure what will happen when the weather gets hot, nor what happens during the winter (market is year round, one large plant vendor stays open all year just on a much smaller scale during the cold months). So how long does it take to double you income or how feasible is it to quadruple your income. It is only me doing all the work, so it would be hard to participate in more than two markets but I would like to sell at one of the smaller farmers markets nearby. Any advice???

John, we have steadily increased our sales at the Farmers Market, but it seems to be a "spring/early summer" only phenomenon. Now we are looking to expand to some type of year=round, or near year round, sales. We sell plants only, herbs, perennials, and natives. During the season, We clear more in a day than we do all week at our "real" jobs, even after taxes
and this year was a bust because of health reasons-but just wait til next year!!!
becca

Our income has increased every year, but we have put alot of the profit back into the garden for things like more plant material, hoophouse, irrigation, mower, tiller, etc, etc, etc. And we have seen several months of work destroyed by less than a minute of hail.And, I am amazed at how hard we work for so little profit. No paid vacation, sick time, pension or matching 401k.The small grower really gets hurt by the lack of economy of scale. I'm glad you are doing well and liking it, but I would think long and hard about quitting my regular job. Augmenting income the way you are doing, and investing the profit may be a better plan to get out of a dead end job earlier. Just my opinion, and I am a fairly risk adverse person.

Selling what you grow direct to the customer is a learned skill and as you get better at it you will make more money and you will also increase your customer base over time which means more money.
as ypu find better markets you will make more money. As you are able to grow/harvest more crops you will make more money.

I started with a 25' x 75' "market garden and now do around 10 acres. I have gone from one farmers market to 2 markets, 2 health food stores, a couple of restaurants and a small CSA. we have gone from a 4 month growing season to a 10 month growing season as we learned how to use season extension techniques. we have gotten very good at growing high end product that we can charge top price. I probably make 100 times what I made my first year (which wasn't much) and the goal each year is to make 10% to 25% more than the year before. Every year I review what went right and what went wrong and make improvements in my marketing and crop selection. yes john it is very rrealistic to expect to be making at least twice what you make this year next year. IIRC our second year of serious growing for market we increased sales and income 10 fold.