.gif "IP Gear")
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2008
- Messages
- 1,767
I've been in Ag my entire life, grew up on cattle and timber farm, got into the nursery business 22 years ago, was going great until the economy crashed, and my segment of the industry was tied to supplying landscape projects in the SE, it went POOF and was gone. Since then, at least 1/2 of the nurseries in the SE have gone out of business. Getting geared back up though, luckily i have a low overhead that allowed me to stay in business, albeit by a thin thread...
In going through this crash, i understood MUCH better the need for diversification, so i started looking at growing food, fruits such as blueberries, blackberries, strawberries (maybe), melons, and then your heavier used vegs such as tomatoes, squash, beans, sweet potatoes, peppers, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, etc... Didn't do it this year because for 1 my organic matter content of my soil is about 1/2 what it needs to be to grow organically, i need to produce my own compost first (or buy it, think i found a great source, economical too).
I'm near a fairly major city that has a real movement to local grown organic, some of the chains (fresh market, earth fare) are doing well, they prefer to buy local, and there's some local markets that growers sell their product to.
Has anyone done this, my questions are if so, have you done the co-op thing where people buy shares up front, how is it dealing with some of the chains, the local markets, etc... Looking at Certified Naturally Grown vs USDA certified, dealing with USDA i want NO part of...
Looking at putting about an 1/2 acre in this fall of 'winter' items, like broccoli, lettuces, etc... gear up to put in 1-2 acres in the spring 2012, and will continue my existing nursery biz, i have all the infrastructure, land, etc already in place to do the food thing
Thanks
In going through this crash, i understood MUCH better the need for diversification, so i started looking at growing food, fruits such as blueberries, blackberries, strawberries (maybe), melons, and then your heavier used vegs such as tomatoes, squash, beans, sweet potatoes, peppers, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, etc... Didn't do it this year because for 1 my organic matter content of my soil is about 1/2 what it needs to be to grow organically, i need to produce my own compost first (or buy it, think i found a great source, economical too).
I'm near a fairly major city that has a real movement to local grown organic, some of the chains (fresh market, earth fare) are doing well, they prefer to buy local, and there's some local markets that growers sell their product to.
Has anyone done this, my questions are if so, have you done the co-op thing where people buy shares up front, how is it dealing with some of the chains, the local markets, etc... Looking at Certified Naturally Grown vs USDA certified, dealing with USDA i want NO part of...
Looking at putting about an 1/2 acre in this fall of 'winter' items, like broccoli, lettuces, etc... gear up to put in 1-2 acres in the spring 2012, and will continue my existing nursery biz, i have all the infrastructure, land, etc already in place to do the food thing
Thanks
