Joe will you sell it all for me wholesale. will you split the profits 50 50 with me. wow. you are such a good guy to want to help take my money from me after I do all the hard work.

you sound like a scam to me.

look why dont you go and grow your own. get the experience. you need it. leave the farmer alone. he needs to sell retail and he needs to keep all the money. he does not need some fast talker to take his money. I suppose you will collect the money for him. and you will give the farmer what you think is fair.

hahaha. you are a joke.

organic -

Perhaps you should do some homework before you insult people.

Joe is a stand up guy. He is a retail partner with one of the top restauranteurs in Chicago, if not the country, and his experience and connections within the restaurant and retail arenas would be immensely helpful for someone looking for this kind of opportunity for their farm. Maybe you should have read his page before you ran off at the mouth? Clearly you know NOTHING about how hard a farm owner would have to work to make connections and an inroad into the retail or restaurant business.

I really don't know why you are even on these forums. You signed up here a couple months ago according to your profile. From what I've seen in the last week, your presence has not really enriched our community. Today you're here insulting Joe. On the Tomato forum, a woman posted in clear distress about a problem with her dying tomato plants, and you gave her a smart ass answer too, and NO help, which is what she was asking for.

Go back to your regular playground, whatever it is. We don't need this 5 year-old mentality around here.

You say in your profile

I'm an absolute newbie who's decided to grow tomatoes, since, in my mother's words, "any idiot can grow tomatoes". Since I was born with a brown thumb and I love tommies, I figured I would try them this year.

Joe

I suggest you should check with the web site. Your posting looks like you are running a business and advertising for your business interests.

this might be against the terms and conditions of this web site.

I think you should just check with the web site and make sure your posting is ok with them. as everyone posts every message we are given to read the following.

By submitting this message, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service.

If you have a business, you must read: Businesses Using the Forums.

which further states the following

Advertising, in any form, is strictly forbidden in forum messages and on member pages. This does not mean that as a business owner you cannot use the forums or have a membership. It means you cannot use forum messages or your member pages as a means of advertising. Even our paying advertisers are not allowed to that.

They just might think you are advertising to find a business partner. they might think you are using the forum messages to advertise for finding a business partner.

I know you do not want to get into a legal problem with the web site. so it looks like a good idea to check with them.

here is what I get from Chicago Joe

My name is Joe and I live right in the middle of the wonderful city of Chicago in a neighborhood called Roscoe Village.

Please email me if you would like to discuss this opportunity at josephvaldes@yahoo.com

now Roscoe Village has zip code of 60618.

I have worked Google.

he says he lives in chicago neighborhood zip code would be 60618.

he says he owns a house.

I find no Joe Valdes or Joseph Valdes in chicago 60618. no phone listed or unlisted. no property in his name. here is the message I get back.

Your search for "valdes, joseph" near "60618" did not match any results.

I also tried joe valdes. nothing.

Now google might have let me down. but I have always been successful before.

so to me it looks like more and more evidence that it is not a good idea for a farmer to partner up with this person.

now spygrrl I know you read what he wrote. but that does not mean that what he wrote is the truth. I have tried to verify some of what he says. with no luck. he claims to have a solid education and an MBA but he misspelled words and does not use good english sentence structure. I believe a college graduate would spell better than what is presented here.

So I find not one single piece of evidence in his favor. I can not verify that anything that he has said is the truth. who is this person. I dont know.

now spygrrl. you say.

He is a retail partner with one of the top restauranteurs in Chicago

I ask you how do you know this. do you know this person face to face personally. or where did you get this information. it is not in his profile. can I ask you with due respect.

is spygrrl and chicago_Joe one and the same person with 2 different names.

Organic Nut,

Your name suits you very well. I am not out to scam anyone. My love of gardening and food has lead me to explore the possibilities of the farming business. I have over 10 years of food industry experience within retail and restaurants and am partners with Rick Bayless, a celebrity chef that is an advocate and supporter of small farms. I had all of this information on my profile until recently because I had a couple of people contact me with solcitations.

I am simply interested in connecting with farms that need an outlet for their products, which I have, and yes make some money.

I agree with Spygrl, your attitude and responses are not wanted on these forums. Furthermore, from what I have read in past posts you have no idea what your talking about. This is about gardening for crying outloud!

Oganic Nut -
Most farmers are really good at growing but not as good at marketing. Lots hire marketers to do it for them. Personally I would prefer staying in my fields every day - growing and producing great vegetables. Unfortunatly I have to spend time marketing - calling chefs, grocers, going to market, etc.. I wish I were near someone who would do all the marketing for me!
Robbins - who's it's kind of creeped out thinking you would go to such effort to check out Joe's zip, address, etc.

Sounds like a proposition worth investigating, to me. I live on 6acres of land, and would love to grow organic veges, and salad products, and have someone help me market them. I am good at growing, I am a horticulturist, but not so good at marketing.

Unfortunately I am thousands of km's away from Chicago, but not too far from Sydney.

Got me thinking now....

Popi

what happens if you never collect the money.

I know someone who did exactly the same as discribed here and he wound up with less than $500 when he should have received over $10,000. but the marketer just kept stringing my friend along all year. at the end of the summer he had worked for nothing and the person with the marketing disappeared with all the money. he never paid the farmer except a few dollars to string him along to get more veggies to sell. kept telling my friend the money was coming.

I think any person who is entering into any sort of business arangement needs to be careful about his new partners. But by being careful, one does not begin by saying something sounds like a scam.

Organic Nut quotes the Terms of Service often when he thinks he can intimidate someone. But he seems to forget that one of the terms of service that he so happily subscribes to is no harrasing or libelous content. It would seem to me that to not know someone and to immediately label them a scam is libelous. Then to track them down to try to find where they live is harrasing. I also think that since the forum of Market Gardening is aimed at people in the business of growing and selling, gardenweb has created a forum just for discussion of making money via gardens. The perfect place for Joe to post his query.