Yesterday was Plum Forest Farm’s second farmer’s market. And, I’m happy to report it was better than the first – for me and for Plum Forest Farm. Not that the first one was awful or really in any way “bad.” After reading the first market post again, I think it is easy to come away from it negatively. The first market was a good learning experience. This market was just better!
Aside from better sales, Rob shared with me the nifty method of keeping a running tally in my head of what a customer is buying, rather than trying to add everything up when they are done picking out their produce. It worked wonders! Duh. Sometimes I am so slow on the uptake. Doing this reduced my sucky math stress to nil! There were also fewer people browsing and more people buying.
We were in a different and better spot at the market yesterday too. I didn’t think about until just now how our location might have affected sales. We were at the end of a table next to Seabreeze Farm on our right and Lavender Sisters on the left, closer to the sidewalk entrance of the market pavilion. On our side of the pavilion, anyway, we were the first and only produce vendor, I think. We ended up selling out of almost everything. Which, here’s the list of what we had:
- Artichokes
- Bok choi
- Cauliflower
- Kale
- Salad mix
- Garlic scapes
- Patte D’Oie salad (pronounced pot dwah, a mix of beet greens and spinach)
The only item we didn’t sell completely was cauliflower. Of which, all the prettiest heads sold and only the floret pieces we chunked off from uglier overall heads didn’t sell. And they were pieces of cauliflower that even I wouldn’t buy, so it’s not a surprise they didn’t go. I was sort of surprised, though, because last week our cauliflower was the second thing to sell out (right after broccoli).
After the first market Rob mentioned the idea that our sales would hopefully be higher this week because people would remember us from the week before and might be more inclined to buy from us again, or buy for the first time if they didn’t last week. I think this idea, coupled with our location probably helped a lot.
All this farming and going to market stuff got me thinking yesterday about my experience at La Chalaguere in France. I went to the archives to see what I wrote and found that I really didn’t post much of anything to my blog. And, for as much as I think about the place and enjoyed my time there so much, it’s too bad that I didn’t share more about it!
Mainly why I was thinking about La Chalaguere is that this time a year ago I was there! It is satisfying to me to know that this time last year, what I’m doing now is what I hoped I would be doing at this time this year. The main things that are different this year versus this time last year is the scale/size of the farm, the location, the relative success at the farmer’s market, and the lack of a secret affair with a french farm girl … all of which I miss! 
A neat similar thing about Plum Forest, though, is Rob speaks fairly good French and we grow quite a few French varieties of vegetables.
Anyhow … I’m not sure what else to post right now. I’m on the verge of writing a huge long rambling post, but I’ll save you from that. Today is Sunday and it’s gray and cool out and it’s a great day to just do nothin. There isn’t anything I have to do. Maybe a few things I feel like I should do. Definitely a thing or two I wish were easier to do (like see Dana). But I don’t think I’ll get to any of them! Maybe I’ll call my siblings and mom …
end of the day update: After thinking so much about La Chalaguere, I decided it was time to just call them! I fired up Skype and rang. I got to talk to Granville and Stella, but unfortunately missed Cia by just half and hour. It was really good to talk to them!