Second Produce Market Insights
I’m still very new when it comes to farmers markets. It you’re following this diary on my farming antics, you’ll have read about how my first market went, along with the fact I wasn’t even going to do markets this year. Currently I’m only attending my local Halesworth Produce Market which is on the second Saturday of each month. In 2022 I intend to rotate amongst various local markets but to start out, one was enough. And as I approached the November market, I honestly wasn’t sure what I’d have for sale.
Luckily I’m yet to be hit by a hard frost which meant - to my amazement for being halfway through November - I actually had flowers for sale. Not many, but the straw flowers and dahlias continue to bloom and a few late, rogue snapdragons, zinnias and cornflowers have managed to make it through. I normally make quite tight bouquets, but with a lack of large flowers along with filler, I had to move towards a more ethereal style.
I actually loved how they turned out. My customers did too as I sold quite a few bunches! I know that a nice tight bunch wrapped in paper always sell well but you’ve gotta work with what you’ve got. Also, something I’d found … my customers actually quite like the flowers NOT in paper. Another win!
Another thing I tried this month were some wreaths. Now I’m going to put it out there up front; I am NOT a craft person. I can follow the instructions by the letter and my ‘crafts’ never look as good as the professionals. Still, with little in the way of produce, I turned my hand to making a few wreaths.
Overall, I think they look okay and several people on my instagram agreed; to the point of saying that I should take them to market. So after questioning myself a thousand times, and asking others, I decided what the heck and took them. I sold none. But, to be honest, I’m not entirely happy with them so I’m not surprised. The other difficulty is how to display them to show their best. It’s all well and good taking a nice photo against a blank, illuminated background but when you’re on a stall, it’s hard to really make them shine.
I used a variety of brown and green bracken, along with foraged teasels. I also had a very few physalis lanterns available and some dried amaranthe and straw flowers.
Despite not making any sales, however, my fellow vendors said to try again in the December market as then people really are gearing up for Christmas. So I think the take home is to hone my skills, display them better and try the market next month when it’s nearer to the holiday period. I’m going to wait until all the deciduous leaves at the farm have dropped and then go foraging again. It’ll be easier to find the evergreen stuff. We really don’t have much in the way of holly at the farm, and no mistletoe either, so there’s two things I must think about getting for future years. Holly is relatively easy but mistletoe is a parasitic plant so I need to do a little research on just how I can get hold of it and then create a good growing environment for it.
And finally, to vegetables. I had hoped to have a broader variety of things but I ended up taking baby lettuce, baby kale, chard, beets and the last of the tomatoes. I also foraged some sloes and crab apples and sold them for £1 a punnet. I went to harvest the carrots and found they were all minute so really not worth spending time washing and cleaning them up. And the radishes? Well, turns out one month isn’t enough time when you’re growing them out of season! Still, I sold more chard than last time, all the tomatoes, all the beets and almost all the lettuces. The lettuces really hadn’t grown on enough to make them worth my normal selling price of £1.50 per head, so I sold them instead as 50p baby lettuce heads and probably made just as much as if I’d been selling them singly as they drew people to the stand. Likewise, the baby kale did well. I use compostable bags but they’re not transparent. I was unsure of how to display these, so in the end I just mounted the kale on the table and weighed/bagged them with the customer present - it worked well! I felt like a proper greengrocer!
Our November stand.
Overall, I’m really happy with how the market went. I made less than last month, coming in at £61 so with the pitch fee, just under £50. Now, obviously, that isn’t sustainable for an ongoing business BUT this is my second market with low footfall and a smaller variety of produce. I had repeat customers from our first market, which is really great. And even better, they were able to give me positive feedback on what they’d previously bought. Fantastic!
Looking forward, I’m fairly sure I’ll be able to offer baby lettuce, baby kale, chard and beets for December. I also think I may have the carrots ready for then too. And in the next few weeks, I need to get my thinking cap on for floral/greenery inspired Christmas-themed products. Going into 2022, I’m excited about growing lots more produce, both in quantity and variety, and reaching out to more markets to start building a customer base.