10 Benefits of a Micro Farm

We have 8 acres of tillable land on our farm and typically plant about 5 acres to vegetables and fruit each year.

Anything under 10 acres is a micro farm.

Here are 10 significant benefits of a micro farm...

The Market Debrief

The Market Debrief  is one of our favorite family meetings. When our children have kids of their own one of the things they will tell them is about is our family round table after the Farmers Market. This usually takes place over lunch:

In the Debrief each of the children would share stories about things that happened at the market that day. Things we learned, things that went well and sometimes things that didn't go so well.

There have been many funny things that have happened over the years.

• Reed had one customer that wanted to negotiate a $1.50 bunch of radishes for $0.50. We had some very nice radishes and Reed was immovable. The customer kept asking for a better price in increments of $0.10. How about $0.60, then $0.70, etc. Until they got to $1.50. At which point Reed said, "Yep, that was the price."  Then the customer gave him a $0.50 tip and paid $2. He said that was the most entertainment he'd had all day and he admired Reed's negotiating skills.
• When she was 10, Andrea would sell lots and lots of flowers. We'd bring 15-20 buckets to a market. She would sometimes go around to the front of our tables to work with customers on arranging them and helping with special requests for colors or sizes. A woman stopped by dressed very very nicely (at least by farmers market standards), clearly on the way to a special occasion.  Andrea took both of her hands, looked into her eyes and with a big smile said you are dressed very beautiful and I have the perfect bouquet of flowers to match your outfit. The lady about melted and said, "I love your daughter, that really cheers me up". She was visiting a friend in the hospital who had cancer.
• Jenna is our family artist.  She does a lot of work with herbs and potted flowers. Her signs and tags are beautifully arranged and written. The first market of the season  about 5 years ago she was arranging some pansy's with bright festive blossoms and a photographer from the Post Bulletin stopped by to take some pictures. Her picture was on the front page above the fold. (Must have been a slow news day). We had 8 articles in the PB that year. We have some very full scrap books.

Spinach Then and Now

On Saturday, May 7, 1988 the Rochester Downtown Farmers Market opened for the first market of the season. This was our second season, having attended sporadically the year before.

 Andrea, always the early riser, literally leapt out bed when I went to get her up. She was "on a mission" to get there, plying me with questions all the way.

We got our one tiny table set up at about 7:30. In addition to some tomato plants, we also had about 20 large bunches of fresh spinach. We'd had a fresh spinach salad the night before that Andrea really liked. Everyone that stopped by got her sales pitch for spinach. She explained how yummy it was and that it had her personal endorsement, which often culminated in a twirling leap into the air (this girl was high energy). She then closed the deal by firmly offering to put a bunch in a bag for them. We were sold out by 9:00. By the time Andrea sold the last of the spinach all the vendors around us were asking if she would take a commission to sell their stuff. I told them that Andrea was in charge of our marketing strategy. This weeks technique was the spinach twirl!

The children loved this spinach and would perfer spinach and ranch dressing to any other treat before bed, even better than a cookie. Now that they are teenagers, they also love Candy Carrots, but spinach is still high on the list of coveted treats.

The reason we were able to have spinach at the very first market was we had some spinach from the previous fall that over wintered and it was one of the first things to come out of dormancy in the spring. I did not realize that the spinach would do that so this was a little bit of serendipity.

When we started at the market we grew Melody spinach and let it get big enough to bunch. So Friday night Andrea and I would wash the plants thoroughly, pick off all the yellow leaves, and group several plants together with a rubber band to form a bunch. We could get about 20 bunches in a large rubber maid tub and would typically take 1-2 tubs per market. We would get $2 per bunch.

Today we grow Tyee baby spinach and cut everything when it is just an inch tall. Andrea and Jenna are still the greens experts and do all the harvesting. I prefer to harvest with a knife, but they still like to use a scissors, which harkens back to when they were little. They can harvest about 20 lbs in 15-20 minutes. We typically get $5 for a a half pound bag. So we are able to pay our help a little better than when we started. That is important as both our children and our other workers are building their college funds.

I Guarantee You Won't Sell This

I absolutely guarantee you won't sell something at the Farmers Market if you don't bring it to market.

Time and time again, the children have said, "Let's leave that home, no one will want that" or "Let's not pick that, no one will buy that".  The following weird examples: