My family has recently purchased 10 acres which we will be moving onto next summer. We are planning on using .5-1 acre for our garden.

Our main goal is providing for our family and preserving for the winter. I would like to use the market is an outlet for surplus veg, berries to offset cost of seeds, canning materials and possibly pocket money for the kids. (2-11 yo's and a 9 yo who are very excited to do the market!!)

I know the director of our local market well, we get all of our milk and eggs from her, so she is helping on getting in.

My question is does this sound like a reasonable idea on that small of a garden? We will also do eggs but that will take a bit.

Thank you all for any info/ideas!!!!
Jamie
Dogwood Farm
Midwest Star Performance Horses

Set up a reliable watering system.

Find your own 'thing', so you are selling it a little differently than everyone else. Don't copy, be inovative.

Keep in mind the local food bank for excess and grow something you have never grown before, live on the wild side a little. I never would eat green beans until I grew my own. Wow, what a difference.

Think about a greenhouse, you have the room. That opens up a whole new market area. Good luck, fresh veggies are the best.

The amount of produce I raised last year was measured in the tons! Remember, to be effective, you will need to have succession planting of crops. This means you will have them over an extended period of time. One example is green beans. I planned on 6 planting this year, I lost the first one to bugs and the last planting in going in next week. I plant about 200 row feet for each planting. I have the space for 2,600 row feet to be planted all at once, but there will never be enough time to pick all that and I will never be able to sell that many beans in one week. I would rather grow smaller, more manageable amounts over an extended time.

Check out my blog, it will give you an idea what you could do on 1/2 an acre.

Where do you guys get your seeds and how long do seeds "hold" when you have them on hand? can the same pack be used for more thank one year? So far I have been looking through the Burpee catalog for our stuff. Are they a good company to order from?

#1 Choice: Johnny's Seeds
Why, Choice, Selection, and fast turn around. I know anytime of the year I can order on Monday morning, before noon and have it in my mailbox on Thursday at 12:30. They have done that so many times, I am use to it now.

#2 Tomato Growers

Good selection, a little pricey, but I have always been happy.

#3 Jung's

#4 Baker's Creek for Heirloom Seeds.

These are the places that I ordered from. Others may be cheaper, but I have found that you get what you pay for. It has been my experience that when I have an off type of seed, it has always been from a cheap seed house or packets I bought at a store.

What I would encourage you to do is find out what varieties others are growing and what grows well in your area.

Also, seed can be kept from year to year as long as it is stored properly. Some say in the freezer, I just leave mine in an airtight container in our cool basement. I have several packets of seeds that are 3 to 4 years old. They germinate just fine.

Jay

As far as keeping seeds over, it depends upon which seeds and how you keep them. I use the Blue canning jars with lids for most of my larger seeds, and baby food jars for the smaller seeds.

I have found out, the hard way, that corn, onions and lettuce doesn't keep very long. I can get a couple of years from the lettuce, but not even 1 extra year for the corn and onions. I have been able to keep tomato seeds for 5-9 years, peppers for 2 years, beans and peas 3-4 years. Squash, both summer and winter, usually keep for 3-5 years, maybe longer but I usually use up the pounds that I order by then. Those are my normal planting items.

Jungs I will never use again. Ordered over $500 in plants from them many years ago and 90% died (and we knew what we were doing as we had been dealing with such for years and years). they gave us a store credit, got more plants and around 60% died. This time we forced them to give us a refund. Have since ordered the same types of plants from other places and got much, much, much better quality usually at less cost.

I also like Seed Saver Exchange and Fedco Seeds.

I love Baker Creek's philosophy but have has way too many mistakes-either seed than do not work, wrong varieties or they mailed the seeds too late to use for the year. I also know most people have had better results from them so well worth a try.

I agree that Burpee is not for market growers, too expensive.

For a market garden, you'll find yourself buying seed by the ounce or even pound. Buy locally in bulk, if possible, at your local feed stores. However, selection is usually limited. For specialty crops, you have to look online--ie. Johnny's and Pinetree are both good. For large orders, tho', I've been mostly using DeBruyn out of Michigan. Some years, I may get a hundred pounds of seed from them. I go in with several people to share shipping.

As Jay noted, you don't need a huge amount of land to grow tons of food. Getting a customer base can be challenging at first. Local Harvest has been very good at getting me regular customers---but YOU have to work at it. They will be interested and contact you, but YOU usually will have consistently follow up to keep it going. I also like selling to restaurants. You may not get market price, but it can certainly be an outlet for volume or leftovers after the market.

Best of luck,

Brook