Hello there, It sounds as if you are pretty enthusiastic and that is a good start. You may want to make sure your partner is as ready to commit to baking everyday in the summer before you count on the baked goods. It is a lot of work. You also need to check your local regulations about selling baked goods. In New York your kitchen needs to be certified. I have sold eggs at the farmers market here. I sold them for $2.00 a dozen which is 50 cents more than what I get at home. There are also regulations for selling eggs in New York. You need to check there in Texas. We don't grow peanuts in New York although I did try one year. LOL A thousand dollars for the grinder sounds high. How much money does your product generate per item? How long will it take to pay for the grinder? I bought a $300 plastic layer to grow cucumbers on plastic ( extra fancy) I make $15 a bushel on my cucumbers so the plastic layer was paid for in a couple of weeks. We only plant 1/2 acre of cukes. You will have to see how much you can make in a season growing peanuts and check out the regulations for prosessing them on your own property for sale.How much will bottling your product cost....lables , jars lids vacuum sealing etc. Good luck with your project. Sounds interesting.
Linda

I don't sell eggs myself, but there is a vendor at my market, whose farm is pretty much around the corner from me, who does sell eggs, and from what I can tell, he sells out at every market. Not only do eggs seem to be one of his top sellers at market, but from what I gather from the market chit-chat, many regulars go to his farm on a regular basis to buy them also. So it seems like a good thing to get into. I've contemplated it myself, but being so new to market gardening, I'm not rushing into anything yet.

I've also thought about beekeeping, but haven't got past the thinking stage yet. And I know in this neck of the woods, one needs a certified kitchen for processed foods, so you may want to check into that.

Good luck with your projects! I wish I had the space/money/courage to be so adventurous!

:)
Dee

Sure, eggs sell very well...BUT you hardly ever make any money on them, even if the price is $2.50 a dozen. And feed prices are now going up weekly at the local feed stores. I have chickens and other fowl, but up here, they don't lay well in winter, they are past their laying prime in a year or two, and they are tempermental in gloomy and cool weather.
It's nice to have fresh eggs, but check out the price of feed and the price you can get for eggs in your locale before committing to anything but enough to feed your family.
Ann

Thanks everybody....I kinda am planning on producing a lot of food for the chickens. One thing I have learned is I tend to over produce. I am doing this on several acres so sometimes I goof and have to much of this or that. I am getting better but...well...
Anyway, one good thing about here in N.E. Texas is we have an amazingly long growing season almost(but not quite) year-round. My chickens that I had in past years did slow down in the winter -laying that is- but that would be ok for me since the ability to sell them is curtailed by the fact that our farmers markets are pretty much done for by December.
Ann, you are probably right, I won't make a ton of money on eggs but then, I guess I do not make a ton of money on ANY one thing. I am just trying to broaden the mix. I am trying to set myself apart from all the dirty, grizzeled (mean) old men in this area who pull up every week with their equally dirty, grizzeld trucks full of nothing but yard long zuchinnis' or Yams or whatever they have that week. I too will have those things BUT I won't spend all my time trying to undercut everyone else like they do. I have been told many times by these old buzzards I am a fool and "people won't buy that here". I have found that in general, if you grow it, they will buy it...but not to much at first. This (not to much at first) becomes my chicken food, lol.
Dee...I can't say I have all that much courage...I just get so sick of self-doubt that I have reached a point in my life where I just dive in- and expect to fail...at least at first. I usually do fail...big time- but then, I learn. I am sinking my life savings, right this very moment, in planting 3 acres of blueberries. When I am done I will have zero in the bank. If I did not do this now, I could wait another 20 years and plant them for my Grandkids. Whats the point? I simply hope when I am a dirty, grizzeled old man at LEAST people will come to me to buy my unique stuff that I layed the ground work for when I was a dirty, grizzeld youngish man.

That is really the point of my question...what sets everone apart from their neighbor?

If I had the cash I would buy a pepper roaster and roast peppers at my market. The smell of peppers roasting on a cool morning is my kind of heaven. Every market I have ever been to that had someone roasting always had a line of folks wanting to buy. The reality is that my market requires me to grow all that I sell and I can't grow enough peppers in my garden and since I work full time I don't have time to harvest them before market either. So instead I take what I can grow and harvest and that ends up being a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Still fun but nothing to quit your job over.

i can relate to your attitude about things. i'm posting because i caught the bee bug a couple years ago and going into this winter i had twenty six hives. i am thoroughly hooked. check out top bar hives if you haven't already. i'm a salad greens (and reds and yellows etc:) person and done quite abit with oyster mushrooms on straw. i saw a need for local strawberrys here in my new locale and put in a test plot this fall. i have a personal problem with chickens but a family member is raising a couple dozen khaki cambell ducks that i might be able to tolerate since they lay well and eat bugs without scratching and noising. variety is good. enthusiasm and freshness sells. good luck and enjoy!

Pepper roasters and Mushrooms....ahh...there we go. Something for me to sink my teeth into!
Stan, I too have 26 hives (had 30 but killed off 4 with some big mistakes)and funny thing..I have been wondering about top-bar. Oyster mushrooms...I never thought of something such as that. I have a few wooded acres that I do not use and could, perhaps, consider doing something such as that in those woods. I have water there too...huhmm...was it a lot of money to get started? What a great idea! Where did you learn to do this?
John, I have never seen a pepper roaster before. In fact, I can not imagine what the heck you do with roasted peppers. Of course, I love to eat them in my Tex-mex dishes but what do the people do with them at a market? Pepper-on-a-stick?lol. I do have a large Mexican population that come to market each week. Is this something they would like or is it more geared to us Gringos? What sort of peppers would I grow to roast?

"...was it a lot of money to get started?"
no. low capital and space input. very labor intensive.
"Where did you learn to do this?"
the internet and paul stamets's books.

Corn sells great at the market i go to. I planted a acer of corn last year and SOLD OUT. This year im going to plant two acers. I get 3.50 to 4 bucks a dozen and people gladly pay it. That was my cash crop last year. Another thing people will pay alot for is shelled beans. You can get 4 bucks a pint. Butter beans you can get ALOT more for.

timh - The pepper roasters I've seem were large stainless steel barrels with a propane burner inside them. They kinda look like one of those tumblers that they draw prize winning tickets out of at a fair. There is a door you can open and dump in a couple of pounds of peppers. Someone cranks the drum and it spins and tumbles the peppers as they roast so that they are equally burned on all sides. People of all stripes (though, mostly hispanic) line up and buy the roasted peppers by the pound in small paper trays or sometimes plastic bags. I think most of them take them home and freeze them.

It is mostly the Anaheim type, long and medium hot peppers that you see being roasted.

You can see them by googling 'chile roaster'

I wonder if roasted peppers would be concidered to be a prepared food? In New Yorks State prepared foods are eligable for taxes and require licensing. Our Farmers market had a corn roaster and we were visited by the USDA. That put an end to our fun :(.
Linda

The are considered prepared food here in NC also. My friends get around that by selling the peppers and roasting them for free and I think they let the customer load and empty the drum. They have the smallest roaster but when I was at a market in south Texas I saw some large roasters and they sold peppers all day long - the line was endless.

Dose anyone know where I can find a small corn roaster I can carry to the local farmer markets.

In my experience you can just about break even on eggs if
you can raise ALL the feed yourself. You have to really,
REALLY like chickens

Eggs are one of those things I consider a value added product, not necessarily an income generator.(plus I just love having chickens!) Our eggs were usually gone within an hour after the market opened, and I found that people will generally buy something else when they come for the eggs. Recipe cards for quiche, fritattas,etc are really helpful, especially when they call for fresh veggies that they can also buy from you also. :)

Hengal....that is pretty much what I was thinking. I did not figure I would get rich but instead, just another thing to add to the overall mix(plus,I like chickens- same as you). Like you say...if they stop by for eggs, they might be more inclined to buy something from me that they could get at any other of the stalls. I had not thought of recipe cards- primarily because even when I follow a recipe, my cooking is a disaster. That said...I do grow a lot of things the other guys don't and a good recipe might spur sales on the more unique stuff!

Hi Tim,
I liked your posting, you sound like an all or nothing kind of guy! One thing that I sell at the market, that no one here has mentioned (that I saw), is goat milk soap. Mine was made from a glycerin base that I bought, but then added my own goat's milk to it as well as herbs that I grew from my garden. They were a pretty big seller, and I sold the large bars for 4.00 ea. Most days, I made more money from soap than produce! I also had pictures of my goats with a blurb about how it is great for your skin because of the high fat content in the milk, and no detergents.

As far as the egg question goes, yeah, you won't get rich on the sales, but they do sell and people up here will pay 2-2.50 doz. for them. This year I will charge 2.50 because the grain is now about 10$ per 50# bag!!
You do need to like chickens, which you do, so you will get enjoyment from them and have the fresh eggs for yourself and your fiancee as well. IN NH, if we sell them as "not sized", we don't have to grade them, but we do need to make sure that they are kept refrigerated until they are sold. We just can't say that they're grade A or charge different prices for different sizes.
It sounds like you are going to be the hit of the market this year. If you're up against grizzly old men with dirty pick ups full of yams and oversized zuchini's, all you need to do is have a table with a decent selection of produce and a few unique things, they'll be flocking to your booth!! Maybe your fiancee can make some soaps or some beaded jewelry as something different. Will she want to go with you to the market to sell??

I breed bantams which make small eggs and sell them for 50 cents per dozen. Its a loser but folks come to my table to look at them and usually make some sort of purchase. I sell the same eggs for $25 per 12 as hatching eggs but not I have more than can be sold as hatchers. If I have to buy cartons its a real loss.