One year, I baked several smaller (reg loaf pan size) Bread Pudding. Sold very well for me. For the market that I did, I thought the old depression era recipes. First of all, they didn't have alot of ingredients and it brings back memories for several people.

If you have a light set up for growing seedlings in the spring, you could fill some 1020 trays with potting mix, sprinkle some mixed lettuce seeds in there and have trays of baby cut and come again lettuce.

I am not sure what you could get for them, $10-12 a tray? but we harvested 3 or 4 salads before we let it die. If someone kept it well watered and in a sunny place they could probably picked more. We did this to see what a new lettuce mix looked and tasted like.

Just a silly idea, but someone could really go for it. Worst thing, you have many trays of salads to eat.

Jay

Yeah i was thinking about indoor plants like herbs and now maybe greens. Cool idea for next year. We only have market on 11/3 and 12/3 then again in May.

What about dried fig leaves for tea? If you have a fig tree? I have a huge fig tree, lots of leaves!

If you have a pot brewing, they will smell and they will come!

wertach, I've never smelled fig leaves brewing, plus around me, no fig trees near. I wonder if sassafras would do the same thing??? Maybe potpouri???

Don't know about Dec. For your Nov times, you might still have parsley, French sorrel and chard with some protection if a cold season. ( I think you're north of me. Mine were still OK without cover at that date this year.) Ever tried Dandelion 'Clio' which has upright leaves? Mine is still actually nice here on Nov 26. I got by without covers this year.

A side note: Clio was looking good in the early summer 'til some critter (groundhog?) chewed it nearly to the ground. Weather then was very dry and hot so plants kind of stood still 'til we finally got rain. Plants really took off again and were available to harvest for several weeks. Best I've had in about four years. The leaves are 10-12" and easy to pick and bunch. The upright habit makes them much cleaner than a more rosette-like type. A couple other times critters got to plantings and plants did not recover as they did this year. Maybe the critter moved on sooner & left just enough to recover.

I don't know if you would consider this a "craft" or not, but I am going to make some suet cakes and try to sell them at my market.

I have made them for several years as Christmas gifts and my son likes to help make them for the birds in our yard.

This is what we tried last week:

Melt tallow or lard in a saucepan.
Add some peanut butter, if you would like.
Then add all of the other "good stuff". Peanuts, raisins, seed, cranberries, etc...

I just pour the mixture in a square container that will make a cake that will fit in a suet cake holder and place in fridge to harden.

I just found out our market recieved a grant for a winter market that will be the 1st Sat of every month from Jan-May, so I am looking for ideas too :)

Great Idea, andreaz6wv. How about gleening some ear corn from a local corn field, with permission of course. Maybe some corn holders for the squirrels, as simple as a board with a long nail drove thru it.

Marla

You can also wild craft interesting looking winter weeds from whatever grows in your area. We got these weeds from the ditch behind my parents house. A small bunch look great in a clear vase on my desk at work.

I also am going to test out pea shoots and corn shoots this winter since they need no supplemental lighting. We ate outdoor pea shoots this year and they are super yummy. Just barely cooked them - taste just like peas. The corn shoots I haven't tried yet.

Those are spore-bearing fronds from ferns, I believe they are Matteuccia struthiopteris (ostrich fern) - I harvest them too, for dried flower arrangements. They inspired me to dedicate a section of my garden to basket-making and dried-flower arrangement materials, which opens up a whole new area for diversification during the slowest times of the year. Even though it's too late in the season to get that up and running, it is a good time to take to the woods and fields and start collecting these types of materials. A trip to the library, or some time on-line, will give you a wealth of planting options for next year, though the market is likely to be crafters rather than farmers market types... unless you're already crafty. It's definitely a good way to extend your marketing season without a major capital investment. If you have some protected growing space, this is a great time of year to be able to offer fresh veggies, too - spinach, turnips, and radishes are all easy to do well into December with a little planning.
This is also a good time to do some subtle marketing - ask the people who stop by what they hope to see next spring when the market re-opens, and be enthusiastic about their ideas (within reason). They'll return looking for you, just to see if you took their suggestions.

So funny Marla! I was at my Grandmother's and we went to a farmer friend of hers and got 2 big sacks of field corn for market :)

Andrea

Suet cakes are a good idea. Of course peanut butter is going sky high. Buy enough now to get you through next year. I work at a grocery store and we have received signs to post for customers about the shortage of peanut butter due to drought. Meanwhile the prices have been going up significantly and many are out of stock. I don't know why the peanuts aren't short or going up in price. I figured maybe they are 2 different crops- peanuts for butter and peanuts for roasting?

Anyway, as long as this thread is back up I will update. Tomorrow is my last winter market. I have spent all day preparing for it. I don't have much to do now anyway. I baked a lot! I still have garlic and some squash/pumpkins and dried herb mixes and pickled stuff. I baked pies and make cheesecake and pumpkin loaves and cat and dog treats. I am also selling processed pumpkin in different forms and frozen hot peppers. I was going to make cookies but ran out of time and processed pumpkin. Whew. I didn't even make dinner tonight because I was still working. I just finished printing my signage and am out of printer ink. How annoying! Well I am pretty confident in selling well tomorrow. The other indoor markets have all done very well.

I am getting ready for my First winter market tomorrow. All week they have been calling for the first snowstorm of the season coming in on Friday night and all day Saturday. Now it has warmed up enough, it is going to be a cold rain. At least we will be inside.

We are taking tons of stuff. I hope it will be a good day.

We will have the last of our Tomatoes, salad mix, lettuce, romaine, napa cabbage, bok choy, carrots, turnips, leeks, spinach, acorn, butternut, spaghetti, sweet dumpling, delectica squash, kale, swiss chard and jams and jellies.

Here are some pictures:
Tomatoes

One Fridge Jammed full

Another Fridge Packed full:

I also have the 400 plus pounds of winter squash.

Here is to a good day!

Jay

Jay you need a walk in dude-or at least a big 3 door commercial fridge. such will save you a lot on your electric bill. When I went to a 3 door commercial fridge my electric bill went down by $50 a month and I had 3x the cold storage and could use the crates I harvest into in the fridge.

Yes that is the truth! I want to do that, but it isn't in the budget, yet. With my wife in nursing school, for the last year and a half, we are just getting by for now. In the next year and half we are planning on putting up a 30 by 40 or 40 by 50 building/packing shed/garage/walk in cooler with a lean too green house on the south side. I have looked for a bigger 3 door fridge, but I haven't found one either.

Jay, even a newer regular fridge will drop your bill. I picked up a newer fridge at a household auction for $55. Amazing how much bigger it was and how much longer things are keeping. Of course, this is just for my household fridge, but still!! I still have 2 old friges for produce, they were free.

Lucy, I drool over having a commercial fridge or a walkin is a dream yet to come. I see that I'm getting more of what I needed to have, but still getting.

Minnie, thanks for the heads up about the peanut butter, I'll have to stock up. Love those PB&J sandwiches for a quick lunch. If you still have pumpkin leftover, you could make up some pumpkin pie mixture and freeze it. I purchased some last year that was in a carton box and you just added 1 egg. So easy, I wished I had picked more up. PS. Canning it does do well, voice of experience, too thick.

Magz, never thought about weeds for arrangements. There are some lovely weeds out in my gardens. ALWAYS.

Bi11, I don't need to plant any weeds, my fencerows are full of them, along with berries.

Marla

bi11me, thanks for the lead on what that plant is called. I had given up on identifying it and was calling it 'peppercorn plant'.

It isn't actually ostrich fern but sensitive fern 'onoclea sensibilis'.

We are going to drop a bunch of these spores along the little creek near our house in the spring. I don't think our city has any rules about harvesting weeds from public lands so we should be able to harvest them next fall.

How about firewood bundles at the market... or fully seasoned "cooking wood"?

I saw one online seller getting big bucks, especially when including shipping, for finely chopped and neatly pack bundles of cooking wood, apple, olive, oak, mesquite etc.

I have a walk in fridge right now. It is called a garage. It chilled all my baked goods last night and the squash I am too tired to bring back to the basement.
I also have a very large walk in freezer too. roll eyes

How do you post photos on this forum?

Well, how did the winter markets go for you over the weekend?

We sold decent. This was the first winter market we have ever had at this market. Of course I wish I would have sold more, but I am pleased with what I sold.

Considering the weather, I was happy people came out. I am glad we had it in an inside location.

Early in the week they were calling for an ice event followed by a snow storm. This was suppose to start on Friday night through Saturday afternoon. By Thursday night, it was changed to a cold, cold rain and some snow by the afternoon/evening.

What actually happened is we had a December Thunderstorm with Lightning and Thunder. It poured rain all morning long! The Kansas State Football game, played about 1 mile from our location had a 90 minute lightning delay. We actually had a few people come over to stay drier.

All in All a success. All my neighbors are happy too as they got all their Christmas presents early. Instead of cookies and candies they all got lettuce, carrots, turnips, tomatoes and squash.

We have another market on January 7th. The only problem is Kansas State plays Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl on Friday night. Last time we played in the Cotton Bowl, Manhattan was dead. Hardly no one in town. I wonder if that will happen again this time.

Jay

I made exactly the same amount at this market as the one in November. That is just fine. It was busy the whole time. I kept trying to take a couple photos of my stuff but people were always there. I brought some of the excess baked goods home and gave them away. I was so busy Saturday I never got to buy my chickens and bread from the other vendors. We are talking about trying one more sometime this winter maybe. I may not go to it.
BTW the cat and dog treats did not sell well. The lady at market next to me in 09 did well with dog treats. Oh well. I gave them away at work.

Minnie, sorry you didn't get pics, but the real reason that you went was to sell, sell, sell and it sounds like you did. Wonderful.

Marla