For some months now I have been attempting to grow some produce that can be sold. We have a wonderful shop in our local town which supports and promotes local growers and fresh organic produce. I have been an irregular customer of theirs for some years in their other shop on the other side of our peninsula. And about 3 months ago they opened a store in the town closest to us. Not only was I excited about this as a consumer, but it has been a dream of mine to grow and sell organic produce for some time … A way of generating some income from our farm which might help us to sustain our other activities.
But of course I have had to build the garden beds from scratch. I wrote about it here. So it has taken me some time to get things going and really establish some kind of food production which is over and above our own needs. And I sourced some more rain water tanks to cut down – they make great raised beds and give an old tank new purpose. I grew most things from seed because I haven’t been very good at that in the past and I thought it was a skill worth practicing. Here’s my lettuces just after they were planted out from the seedling tray …
We only have one tank near the vegetable garden at this stage and it holds 1000 litres – which sounds like a lot, but each day I am using around 100 litres just to keep things alive. We haven’t had any rain for over a month so my beloved has been carting water from our main tank and re-filling the garden tank, one bucket at a time to make sure we have enough for the vegetable garden. All the watering is being done by hand as we have not yet established our irrigation system. While this sounds tedious, I find it very relaxing and as I wait for the watering can to refill, I potter around weeding the beds, tend to the seedlings or doing a couple of quick transplants of seedlings to beds or adding mulch to the beds as they need it. There is always something to do while waiting and sometimes I just sit and enjoy the peace and quiet of an early morning or late evening. Occasionally one of our resident kangaroos hops past on his or her way to greener pastures and does not seem to be too perturbed by my presence.
So it has been quite an achievement to get some produce to the point of being sale-able and in enough quantity to make it worth while, but it has been a pleasant endeavour along the way.
I am sure this will be the first of many deliveries we make to our local grocery store!