Selling your surplus at your gates when you have a seasonal glut is one thing … running your garden like a business so that you’re growing enough of what your regular customers want, when they want it, at a price that covers all your costs (even in a bad year), gives you enough to invest in seed, compost etc the next year, pays you a fair hourly rate for your work and covers any business rates/tax liability is entirely another thing.
Before you make a financial or other sort of commitment do get advice from someone with experience running a horticultural business … not just growing the stuff but the marketing and the hard sums too.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
@phillippasmith2 Sorry if I didn't explain it well. All the produce was grown in the walled garden it's self. I think they thought they needed to introduce a pricing scheme. I would love to volunteer there just too far away but always worth a visit. Don't know if it is true but I was told the longest greenhouse in the country.
Ah right @GardenerSuze I had misunderstood. The NT property at which I volunteered didn't grow any veg as it wasn't really ideal. The gardens rose up from the village and river in terraces around the house. Plenty of exotics and the gardens were beautiful. Shame you are too far away for yours. I do love greenhouse "gardening" . The largest I ever managed was a 50 x 20 foot but that was many years ago. Just a baby compared to the Botanic gardens.
I have been buying my veg from the grower/sellers at the local market (Normandy). They have 8 hectares of land, including and orchard. Even on that scale and working 6 days a week, it is slim pickings. Not everything they produce sells and they end up giving a significant percentage to a food bank. Weather and pests can wipe out and entire crop of something - this year they lost all their brassicas to weevils and their outdoor tomato crop was very poor. Plus, they are reliant on their customers wanting what they have when they have it.
I know they find it rewarding but there are times they get very down. Do very careful research, it might be harder than it sounds.
Round here, and it may be far from typical of your neighbourhood @riew, it is almost bad form to sell surplus vegetables. Any excess is given away, donated to the food bank, or sold with an invitation to donate to a charitable cause.
Trying to sell commercially would gain very scant reward because at harvest time half the community will have its own surplus and there’ll be no market for what you’re trying to sell. Sorry to sound so dispiriting but that is how it is in these parts.
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Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Shame you are too far away for yours. I do love greenhouse "gardening" . The largest I ever managed was a 50 x 20 foot but that was many years ago. Just a baby compared to the Botanic gardens.
I know they find it rewarding but there are times they get very down. Do very careful research, it might be harder than it sounds.
Since I couldn't eat an extra 150lbs of cherries, any price was a good one.
I'd already sold 30lbs at work, at half the going rate, so my market was limited.
Trying to sell commercially would gain very scant reward because at harvest time half the community will have its own surplus and there’ll be no market for what you’re trying to sell. Sorry to sound so dispiriting but that is how it is in these parts.