This is crazy to me, but it’s an unfortunate truth we have to face. This season has been one of our best growing seasons. We’ve been at this for almost ten years, increasing our organic yields year after year. I have a small business where I sell some of these products to a few travelers here and there. Several local patrons have told me my products would be useful and welcomed at the markets, and they often don’t have enough of those types of products. For the past two years I’ve attempted to make connections with our three closest farmer’s markets. They are all independently owned, small, brick and mortar type stores selling a variety of local farm goods. One location has weekend vendor events. I spoke with a woman, she was VERY interested, basically said yes without seeing my crops, and then never followed through. Another location is labeled a co-op. They just posted social media content asking for more “alpha-males” to step up and farm. I don’t play like that. My daughter has every right to my farm as my son does. The last location seems to be only willing to sell their own produce and bakery along with some mainstream products you can get at any other organic store. None of these locations have bothered to follow up! It’s frustrating.
I’ve offered our extra produce to friends but everyone is so busy and overworked, they don’t have time to stop for a couple of items at a time. I’ve also donated to our local homeless shelter. The main issue with giving away, is that I don’t have time to deliver it all. I’m busy maintaining, harvesting, and processing for our family’s winter, all on top of other work. I’m in spot that doesn’t get a lot of daily traffic, so a farm-stand doesn’t make sense.
So after years of building up our homestead, growing an orchard, finding some niche food items, we are planning to grow a lot less next year. I can’t keep throwing good food away, it’s crushing me. Plus we’re just spending too many resources and time on food we can’t even give away. We’re already preserving enough of what we grow for our family for the year. Usually we run out of supplies for that. This is ridiculous, but a sad sad reality this summer.
Is anyone else experiencing similar frustrations in their area? Has anyone figured out something else I haven’t mentioned here? I’m so disappointed we can’t share our beautiful bounty with more people! I really underestimated how challenging that would be.
Note: we don’t have animals we can feed the extra produce to. We have other businesses that keep us too busy for livestock. We’re also quite good at preserving and making shelf-stable products. We do everything from canning, to dehydrating, to vacuum sealing to freezing. It just depends on the item.
by Mottinthesouth
35 Comments
Never, you become a communist and give it away for free.
Did you follow up? Did you show up with stuff to sell??
Have you considered freeze drying? It’s a big investment but I the ramps I harvested are still in mason jars from 3 years ago that are still totally fine.
What about making bouillon from your extra veggies?
Fruit leather from your extra fruit
Don’t do that. Don’t down size. Preserve it. Use the past years harvest now and this years harvest later. Even if it’s going in the compost bin, it’s benefiting you down the road.
Hmm, would you be able to set up a small stand at the roadside with a free sign? Are there any local food pantries?
If your meeting your goals for your pursuits, then absolutely downsize production and increase cover cropping. I grow for market, and I dream of meeting my revenue goals on less and less land so I can rotate more of my land into cover crop, plant more garlic every year, and have more free time to do other things on my homestead.
I found in my local it wasn’t working so I gave a third of my rows to cut and dried flowers.
Where the hell do you live that your neighbours aren’t interested in free food? This can’t be real.
It sounds like you spend a lot of time and effort to produce things for people who aren’t interested. Nothing wrong with downsizing. You can put that time and effort towards other things. There is no shortage of other things to do on a typical homestead.
Chickens, rabbits and pigs = no waste and plenty of organic fertilizer.
You could grow things like beans, chickpeas, lentils, they last longer
Put up flyers for your neighbors to buy shares in your CSA. They help pay in the Spring, but can come pick up fresh veggies all Summer.
I hope for over production, knowing that some years will be awesome, and others very lackluster. What I truly cannot use, I give away and/or feed to chickens, sheep, etc. Planting ‘just enough’ leads, inevitably to low yield years where I don’t have enough.
Do you grow more than you need to feed your family for the year? I’m just starting out homesteading, and don’t yet grow as much as i want, but whatever dont eat in the summer gets preserved.
You could try selling the preserved food. Are those hot peppers in the photo? Dehydrate them and sell the hot pepper flakes. Put together dehydrated soup mixes.
These are off the top of my head before my coffee thoughts, but I hope they give you ideas.
Where do you live? I’ll come take it off your hands…
My excess goes to my livestock. You say you don’t have time, but I spend less than 30-40 minutes a day in totality with my pigs, chickens, quail, and ducks. They’re pretty self sufficient, and as long as you set the stuff up right they’re good to go.
Alternatively the excess can be used for compost, before my livestock I had rotating compost where some stuff was further along than others and I could keep a good rotation going.
Necessity breeds innovation, I feel like saying you’re too busy is your own way of saying that you don’t really want to deal with it. Which is fine, when there’s several avenues to get food out, and you’re shooting a lot of them down. Can’t deliver to give it away, don’t have livestock, too busy to deliver to livestock, and can’t preserve it all, because you’re “too busy”
I too have businesses, along with my girlfriend. I hang dry a lot of items, low maintenance low time involved, fermentation, low maintenance low time.
Try local restaurants and your local food pantry.
We bought dehydrator and another big freezer. If we grow way to much one year we just do not grow it the next while we use up our surplus. The extra crops will pay for the storage quickly with the price of food today.
If you ran out of traditional storage, is there not a way you may be comfortable storing items non-traditionally? Like, burying it under grade in a marked location?
We had to do this as well. We couldn’t even keep up with the canning. Our “garden” made no sense for 4 people. 40 probably so most of it went to compost. It took so much time to manage as well.
We have been bummed this year with a lack of variety however.
You say they haven’t followed up with you. Have you followed up with them? You’re the one selling the product, be a salesman.
If you’re growing more than you can consume, get a pig and give it your excess.
I have a real problem locally with the farmers markets near me, being poorly timed. Who wants to go to one on a Thursday, between 3 and 6pm? If I were in your shoes, I would consider if you know any other local friends having similar issues as you, and consider starting your own farmers market at a local area in town you could rent from the city. That gives you more control over when you do it and nobody in your way to sell your goods.
Ever heard of community supported agriculture (CSA)?
You don’t have to take your produce anywhere OR get people to come to you. A lot of people start a CSA to get up front capital to start production, but you already have a head start. You get people to subscribe to your farm basically and ship produce to them. It adds some work and cost, but the money from subscriptions takes care of that. It cuts out dealing with the markets, gives you freedom and connection with customers. I would look into it if I were you. Rather than downsizing it could lead to growth.
You’ve already found your solution. Just do less.
Or you donate it to your local food bank
Farm stand on the side of the road with a Venmo code and a cash lockbox. I pass a million of them in my neck of the woods and they’re always selling out. All you need is a lean-to with a shelf and a chalkboard sign. Also, might be able to donate to a local food pantry and claim a tax write-off.
Why are you throwing it away? Do you have a local food bank? That is what the gardeners near me do.
Wish I lived by you, I would go over and help distribute the product throughout the neighborhood.
Have you tried online markets? There are a few diffrent networks of them and they are pretty easy. You just drop off orderes once a week. LocallyGrown.net is a network i use, but there are others, you just have to find one close to you
I get it. Before you burn out, downsize. Change a few rows into perrenial vegetables that produce a bit less but are less work in the long run. Do pollinator rows. I would still maintain the rows somewhat in case you have to replant it someday but yeah, plant what you eat, eat what you plant. You put some extra but not much much extra.
Also, I get it that you want to give to the community but the community is not there. I am currently giving like 10 zuchinni a week to my work colleagues. They begin to be a bit saturated in zuchinni. We also have a few community fridge around. I do bring stuff there but it seems that people don’t want it. Basic stuff is alright but don’t go fancy or it will stay there.
I’ve said this many times, harvest and storage is serious work so grow the things that store easy (garlic, potatoes, carrots, etc) or high value, tomatoes
Is there local livestock growers. Any body with a few pigs will take any food. Cattle too. Chickens. Swap your excess for some of their produce. A trailer of vegetables will go a fair way into some pigs. And chickens.
Do you have a food bank that would accept fresh produce? Those are beautiful peppers! In contrast, the yield from our garden this year has been terrible.
And here all I got this year was asparagus 😭 My fruit trees and bushes are turning yellow and dropping their leaves due to too much rain. Everything that grew is small and diseased.
i’m making pickled jalapenos today! i use these tasty treats all year.