5 MUST-DO TRICKS To Make Your Vegetables More Profitable!

Okay guys, today we're talking about selling and bottom line. I want to teach you five tricks to make your crops more profitable. Only because we're doing this, we're getting twice the amount of money. You can't imagine the difference that it really makes. Beauty drives sales. So the first trick... Has to do with the fact that in market gardening we're not trying to move produce, we're not growing volumes. What we're trying to do is capture the whole margin on everything that we sell. And a prime example of this is when we're growing root vegetables, let's say carrots. Beets is the same thing. We are growing these and selling them with their tops on. And only because we're doing this we're getting twice the amount of money Per carrots, that if we're selling them bulk. Okay, that's a huge difference. The people are not eating the tops, but because we're selling them fresh, people would decide they want to have fresher products, and it glows, and that's what they need. And if you're asking, are we tricking the customer and selling more expensive, no, we're not because they're paying for a different product. The product is fresh carrots, and the tops showcase that, tells that story. If you go to any supermarket, compare the price of fresh bunches when they're there and they're nice compared to bags of wholesale of these same products, it's almost always twice the pricing, okay? So that's just how it is, but as a market gardener, you need to get into that mode and then you're starting to grow. Let's say again, fresh carrots in sequences. So you'll be planting every week, every second weeks, and that's how you'll always be harvesting fresh, healthy carrots that you can get a better price again because you're growing them not in bulk, but selling them in bunch with their tops on. A pro tip is when you're selling these at farmer's market, Make sure you have a mister with you so that you can create this mist atmosphere even at farmer's market, especially when it's getting super hot at the end of the market. The second tip, and that is true for pretty much all the vegetables that come in early in the season, ...is to be the first at market with these vegetables. The first at market with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers will be king. You'll make a killing if you're able to come early June with tomatoes. Everyone in the market is going to be come later. They'll come in August, late July. And if you're able to grow your tomatoes, for example, inside a heated greenhouse and start them really early in the season, we're talking about flavorsome, earth-grown tomatoes that might be indeterminate. They're grown in a greenhouse, but they're still packed with flavor. But the key here is to have them a few months before everybody else. That's how we end up making 20 tomatoes To 30% better margins because we're selling these. These are premium produce. That's the ultimate way to get more out of these products that are already high paying crops. Tip number three, beauty. Drives sales. Remember that, okay? So anything you do, make it nicer. Make it more beautiful. If you're growing cabbages, bring different colors of cabbages. Make sure that the colors of the different produce are standing out. And most importantly, and that is a lesson that you really need to apply. Take it from me. Take it from all the market gardeners that are out there making it work. You need to clean. And make everything look super clean and fresh. So all the vegetables that we're harvesting, they'll be dunked into cold water. The soil is going to be rubbed off of them, either with a spray gun or whatever. Each vegetable has its own way of doing it. But everything is super spick and span clean. There's no soil. There's no dirt. There's no dead leaves. There's no brown leaves. Everything is sorted, graded, and looks really good. Beauty drives sales. And if you put your attention to that and you become that grower that makes everything look super clean and super nice, you'll be the king at market. People will recognize you for your excellence and you'll be selling more for sure. Compare that to somebody that's not doing that, just bringing in his stuff, the same item, you can sell just 20-30% more because you're that grower. That grower that is taking the extra time to clean his vegetables, to store them in the cold room 12 hours, and to make Make everything look spick and span when you're selling at market. Beauty drives sales. Okay friends, just jumping in here. If you're selling at Farmer's Market, we have an amazing resource for you. It's a checklist. It's a checklist of everything that you should not forget and be well prepared when you're going to market. It's a free resource. It's for you. Check it out. Pre-wash and spin dry your salad mix. Salad mix is one of the most profitable crop that you can grow in the market garden for a lot of reasons. First of all you can almost grow it year-round because you change the ingredients to have you know summer and frost hardy crops. But also because people eat salad all the time, especially if it's pre-washed, bagged, and then they just need to put their hands and put this into the plate. That's what people really like, convenience. So if you want to get a better income with whatever greens you're growing in salad mix, make sure that you're pre-washing it and spin drying it so that it has a longer shelf life and then people can eat it directly out of the bag. That's what makes this product so valuable, and that's how you're able to get a really good price. Compare it to clamshells that you buy in supermarkets, already rotten from the bag. It's also pre-washed, but it's not fresh. Yours will be fresh, but if you spin dry it in a washing machine, and if you clean it really nice, let's say in a bubbler, or different strategies to get there, you'll have a produce that is world class, even if you have only a small farm. That's the trick. Pre-wash your salad mix, spin dry it so that it has a long shelf life and brand it, brand it to your farm with a nice sticker, your logo, the ingredients, make it something that is really closely identified to your farm and you'll have a market for this salad mix year round. Okay, number five and that's the quiet revolution happening right now is using seasonality and In cold weather, To really flavor up your crops and market it that way so anyone that has frost happening at one point on the farm, which is most of us out there, When you need to know that when vegetables, they get a frost, they protect themselves and then they sweeten up, they concentrate their sugars to avoid dying. And that's how they become sweeter. It's really obvious on certain crops, carrots being one of them. Harvest carrots you know a few weeks or a few months before frost and harvest them the next day of when you had frost on the ground and taste both. They're not the same, it's a different product and flavors are amazing when the cold kicks in. And so you need to somehow bank on that and advertise these and also sell them as such. And when people they taste, they'll realize the difference and you can get a better price for these products. So there's a whole array of vegetables that are frost hardy, carrots, turnips, but also greens, spinach, and the most frost that they get, the bigger the frost, maybe not, you know, 20 below Fahrenheit, but a nice frost. will sturdy them and will concentrate their sugars. So it's your work to harvest these at that time and to advertise them and sell them as such, because people will really appreciate the taste, especially if they get to taste it, and they'll pay more for this high quality. You can also tell them that the better flavor comes with more nutrients, which also comes into play, which is, I think, the next frontier in getting a better price point. For the beautiful things that we grow in the Market Garden. So there's a lot to say about learning all these things. You know, become a successful grower doesn't happen overnight. There's so many tips and tricks and procedures that you need to learn. If you're interested in pushing the boundaries, join the next cohort of the Market Gardeners Masterclass. Put yourself on the waiting list and that's it. There's so much to share. This is only the tip of the iceberg, but we're getting there.