For some crop , overrun is closely ineluctable in the middle of the summer . Healthy mash or courgette , tomatoes , eggplants , capsicum pepper plant , okra and others can often create so much solid food as to make it knockout for anyone in any securities industry to sell it . That say , there are emphatically a number of room to make money off this excess green goods . Some method acting are very practical while others might take a little more oeuvre and creative thinking , but excess does n’t have to be a trouble in the garden — it can just as easily be a boon .
First, Make a Plan
carry on with surplus produce is something that starts in the garden program . Ideally , you wo n’t give rise more of any one craw than you may reasonably deal . This can be difficult , of course of action . Yet planting smaller sum while making indisputable each harvest succeeds is a more cost - effective and efficient strategy to reduce wasted travail than institute a clump and trust it sells . That say , it ’s expert to have a contingence plan because even the most meticulously planned garden can overproduce . So permit ’s appear at what to fit into that plan .
1. Build Pre-emptive Relationships With Chefs
husbandman make the common misunderstanding of prognosticate chefs for the first time when the bountifulness is in rather than month before . relationship with restaurantsstart in the winter , not just when the farmer ask to sell supernumerary produce . Building good relationships with chef opens the possibility of them buying spare of some ware when you have it . If this position , you might very well be one of a twelve other farmers get through them to get the sales agreement .
2. Maintain Quality
Even when your flora overproduce , that does n’t mean you should underpick . Even when you have excess produce , harvest crops when they are still going so that the bounteousness can be marketable . Too often , I see farmers taste to peddle extra with child squash or courgette or okra that was obviously neglected in the playing field . If it take care salutary and is picked at the right time , it will always sell better . In fact , sometimes , when in full H.M.S. Bounty , we will often pick harder and sell small squashes and zucchini or cucumber as “ child ” crops , which reduces the amount of large squash racquets we have while acquire a whole new intersection for consumers .
3. Have Good Storage
suffer some sort of prominent cooler dramatically improve one ’s ability to maintain quality as described above , which hold back surplus garden truck vendible . So regardless of where the Cartesian product ends up , it wo n’t molder in a affectionate infinite but rather be kept vendible for a longer period of prison term .
4. Create Value-Added Products
If you have access to a commercial kitchen or already have a home processing licence , rule room to keep up the bounty will always help to use it but also potentially make those extratomatoesor squash or St. Basil more valuable . squash can be easy freeze , as can pesto ( without the cheese ) . Tomatoes and corn are also well-to-do to freeze out or can . And who does n’t screw a good pickle ? good deal of options here .
5. Have Customers Pick Their Own
We often think of berries when we hear the full term “ pick your own ” but why not Lycopersicon esculentum for canners ? Cherry tomatoes ? Potatoes ? Okra ? Do n’t block that customers more and more want a connectedness to their solid food — this can be a good way of life to get some assistance and make a small excess money when the garden is producing more than you may keep up with .
