TURN YOUR GARDEN SURPLUS INTO CASH . . . AT THE FARMERS' MARKET

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We also did a brisk business in the wild mulberries and elderberries that we picked off our land. (Both the jelly-making crowd and the homemade wine brewers appreciated the berries! )

And "pickling" cucumbers! They sold so fast it made our heads swim . . . probably because all the other vendors offered only "slicing" cucumbers (which are not nearly as much work to pick and which don't have to be as fresh as pickling gherkins). Yes, it took some extra effort to get up early, fresh-pick our little cucumbers just before going to market, sort them by size, tuck in a few sprigs of fresh dill, and label each basket with a note reading "fresh-picked cucumbers for pickling". But it was money in the bank! Our customers told us they'd "looked all over" for the baby gherkins . . . and snapped them up as fast as we could haul them into town.

WE DIDN'T ALWAYS GUESS RIGHT

Although we had more than our share of successes last year, we had some disappointments too. The heavy demand we experienced for our small potatoes and small cucumbers, for instance, didn't carry over even to the larger cucumbers we sold.

Most of the present generation of American shoppers, it seems, believes "bigger is better" so firmly . . . that it'll pick a big, woody, overdeveloped vegetable over a smaller and far more succulent one almost every time.

I couldn't believe that at first. But I caught on fast when I saw customer after customer pass up our tasty "picked at the peak of perfection" squash, beans, carrots, slicing cucumbers, etc., in favor of the grotesquely overgrown produce at nearby stands.

Result: [1] I soon gave in, let most of our offerings grow bigger than I really should have . . . and watched sales go up. Still, this bothered me so much that [2] I'm now preparing a pamphlet, "How to Tell a Good Vegetable When You See One" which I intend to distribute from our booth this summer.

Another downer: Few shoppers realize that a washed vegetable is inferior to and will not keep as long as an unwashed one (even if the scrubbed carrot, squash, or whatever does look prettier).

Yet another disappointment: People almost invariably shop for price and not quality. "Organically grown" didn't seem to mean much to most of our customers, in other words, if our prices were higher than those posted by a neighboring stand. Which, of course, means that we now have a golden opportunity to do a little more missionary work this coming summer.

DON'T BOTHER
WITH PACKAGING . . .

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FARM FRESH: DIRECT MARKETING MEATS & MILK '

Allan Nation

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