Advice Needed on Value Added Products

[FarmerChick]

yea ETR
my lettuce, spinach and all that is direct sowed in acre fields. no mulching. so yup, splashed up mud.

sugar snaps
yup I grow those. lost last years crop...got very little out of them. season treated them very rotten..LOL....but the year before I had a fab crop and sold tons of them at HIGH prices. They were super delish! I ate tons out of the fields..HA HA

wow the hot peppers grow like weeds here.


I have tried to force things to grow to sell, but I learned real fast when it all goes bad, it wasn't worth the time, effort and money wasted. So now I try to stay to crops that handle my Zone and have little effort.

Tomatoes are a pain. I am not growing them for market this year. Just doing like 1/4 acre for myself and friends and family and maybe take a few to market. EVERYONE has tomatoes from all hybrids to heirlooms to every color etc..LOL....a mater in NC is not special...LOL----so I think by selecting and eliminiating certain crops I can control time management better.


my personal little garden is mulched at this house and yup, my produce is relatively clean.

 

[FarmerChick]

yea poppycat
I thought about that......make what I have work bigger and better for me. Thought of doing links with the sausage along with the ground patty that I sell. But my processer doesn't do it...no links made from him.....so I would have to take it to another processer farther away....so kinda got lax on doing that.

Maybe I am thinking too much. I tackle too much and leave myself with no time and moan about it..HA HA...maybe what I have IS ENOUGH and I should stop worrying about it.

At least this thread got great ideas out into the open. Learning new ways to make money is a good thing.

 

[enjoy the ride]

That is the difference between the person growing for themselves and the ones growing to market. When you are looking for mass production, everything is mare difficult.
I trimmed my goatie's feet yesterday, snapped a color and lead on- hooked them to a fence post and was done with all of them in 15 minutes. Now if I had 40.....................
Farming to make money is hard........................

 

[FarmerChick]

wow that was alot of work in short time.

we worm, trim hooves, any shots, etc. all at the same time. I must say they handle well.....Tony couldn't trim 120 goat feet at one time, backbreaking...so we split that up.

but with 30 now (only 30 left) it is easy now too and these girls were my favs. they were the ones that are more touchable and such. I noticed as I decreased the herd and "played" more with them when feeding and such cause it was handleable ....they certainly are easier to catch and such.

I handle kids more now then when we had tons of kids, and they do socialize better when handled. of course, duh, sure they would...HA HA

I think less is more now. Farming to make an income requires alot of animals to pull in real profit. BUT with less animals I enjoy working with them more.

 

[enjoy the ride]

What we all need is a miracle product- something that grows like a weed, never has health problems and people will pay anything to get.
I think the pet rock market is over.

With the goats, it helped that I grabbed the collar of one that was curious about what I was doing before I released the one I was trimming- didn't have any chasing to do. Now how often does that happen?

 

[PamsPride]

What are sugar snaps?

 

[FarmerChick]

Sugar Snap was the first of an entirely new class of pea: the edible-podded snap pea. Noted for its tall productive vines and succulent pods that can be eaten at any stage. Sugar snap peas are crisp, tender pods encasing the sweetest, plump, round peas imaginable.



These are the kinda fat, flat pods that are sugary to eat. THEY ARE FAB....cool weather plant. If the conditions are right the produce is abundant and are high dollar near me. Make great money off them...and you get to eat tons off the vine while harvesting..LOL

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I don't let the pea get this big....I harvest when alot flatter than this.

 

[PamsPride]

I think we must just call them snap peas around here.

 

[FarmerChick]

With the goats, it helped that I grabbed the collar of one that was curious about what I was doing before I released the one I was trimming

LOL-LOL

ETR you are thinking like a goat....you are way ahead of them now..HA HA HA.....I try to out think them also. Like I swear if I am going to grab one they can just tell by my body language even though I try to "act like I ain't going to grab it"---LOL


we use a shoot system. We pen them up in a small corral, then herd into a small pen and smaller pen then Tony grabs one out in a small area and does what he needs to and then shoots them out into a secondary pasture. System works well.

But man they always know when something is up!!!!! They are smart critters!

 

[lorihadams]

My dad said he read an article about people using kudzu for making fuel. Wouldn't that be great....tons of kudzu all over Va and NC.

I like the idea of the seasoning packets or jars of soup mixes. I made all kinds of money selling gift baskets of jars of bath salts (super easy to make), soup mixes, cappucino mixes, and cocoas. Lots of people need easy gift ideas...baby baskets too, lotions and stuff for babies..."all natural" and "green" products are the trend now so i wonder if there is any way to enhance the marketability of the soaps and lotions that you already make....hmmmm