…and now for something completely different…
At dawn
Canoe bow waves are quickly lost
on the shoreside
But go on out of sight
on the lake side.
-1986
The constant swish-swish of skis
On a day long ski.
The constant swish-swish of wiper blades
On a day long drive.
-1990
My dog, trotting barefoot
Steps on a garden slug
And thinks
Nothing of it.
-1999
Word spreads quickly
as I approach the pond.
All becomes quiet.
-1997
Hidden in the vines
a large warted cucumber
jumps out of reach.
A toad!
-1997
Delicate puffs
of marshmallow snow
carefully perched
on a branch,
await the trigger of my hat
to melt their way down my back.
-2010
Deep in the tomato jungle
Fruits of yellow, purple and red
Tell of their readiness
To go to market.
-2010
Sugarin' Chores
Snowflakes hurry through my flashlight beam,
As my boots knead new snow with spring mud,
On my nightly Hajj to keep the boil alive,
For as long as possible until the dawn,
To match the power of the flowing sap,
With my meager evaporator and will.
The prize at the finish line are jars of syrup
And Spring.
-2013
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Snakeroot Organic Farm
Overview of Our Marketing
New Farmer Training Course, Waldo Extension Office
Tuesday, 27-March-12, 6pm
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In 1981, I joined a couple at a farm where we were wholesaling all of
our five acres of storage crops to various co-op retailers and to
Johnny's Selected Seeds. This consisted of carrots, parsnips,
rutabagas, beets, daikon, onions, leeks, winter squashes, and seed
shallots. Since one of the original partners preferred a macrobiotic
diet, we did not grow potatoes.
-
For the most part, the system worked well for us: we were
actually supporting ourselves by farming! We planted from April to
June, harvested from August to October, and sold from September
through March, making weekly or bi-weekly deliveries ourselves.
However, the cash flow was terrible, requiring us to obtain a
business loan every year to support the operation from April to
September, when we would finally begin to get paid for our
deliveries.
-
In 1982 we began planting a small part of our gardens to summer
harvested crops and attending a farmers' market. This worked so
well that we expanded the summer crops the following year and began
attending a second farmers' market. We were delighted that, unlike
selling to a retailer when you often get paid several weeks after
delivery, we got paid in cash every day we went to market. And we
got paid retail prices, to boot! In each of the following years we
expanded the summer gardens while continuing to grow storage crops
for fall and winter deliveries. By 1990 retailing at farmers'
markets made up over two thirds of our income, we had expanded to
ten acres under cultivation, and were declining market opportunities
because we simply couldn't produce enough and still maintain the
small farm lifestyle we were living.
-
In 1990, my wife Lois joined the farm, and a few years later the
original couple split up, so Lois and I moved to a run-out
hayfield on the Snakeroot Road in Pittsfield to begin our own
farm on. We immediately focused on attending farmers' markets,
starting one in Pittsfield in 1997 and in Unity in 1999.
- Today we attend those markets plus farmers' markets in
Orono, Waterville and Newport, which means at the height of the
summer we are going to a total of seven markets five days a week.
This of course requires that we hire local folks to work with us on
the farm, and we offer them the opportunity to train for going to
market for us.
- Our strategy for our marketing has two main branches:
product strategies and customer strategies.
- Product strategies involve providing a wide range of
garden seedlings and quality produce, consistently week to week, and
over as long a season as possible. We are MOFGA certified organic,
and we display this at market. Over our 15 years of growing at
Snakeroot, we have expanded our selling season from May into April
and March, and from October into November. We have developed storage
techniques, greenhouse growing methods, and in-field overwintering
techniques that allow us to bring produce to market early in the
season before most folks have even started their gardens. We bring
frost sensitive crops to fall markets weeks after the local gardens
have been frosted. However, we do value our “down time”
to recuperate during the winter, so we intentionally do not sell
year-round.
- However, too often we see producers of quality products at
market who seem to believe that offering a good product is all that
there is to marketing. We believe this is a big mistake, so we also
have . . .
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Customer strategies involve trying our best to make shoppers
feel a true sense of hospitality at our stand at the markets we
attend. We do this by using low- and no-pressure selling techniques;
by giving gardening advice in any degree of detail a person is
willing to listen to; by presenting attractive, colorful and
well-labeled displays that are a joy to behold; and by always
showing shoppers that we are happy to be there. As a result,
shoppers often stop by our stand even on rainy, cold and snowy days
to buy the freshest in locally grown high quality organic produce,
and even if our hands are so cold we can barely make change, we
smile and joke with them as they make their purchases. Because we
really do enjoy what we are doing.
- Today at Snakeroot Organic Farm, approximately 90% of our
produce is sold at farmers' markets directly to the folks who will
be having it for dinner that week. The rest is sold to a few other
growers, a few locally owned retailers, and through the mail via
internet orders. We've been consistently grossing over $100,000 on 5
acres for the past several years.
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