Market Organic Gardening: Going Commercial
Market organic gardening is producing vegetables, fruits, flowers and other ornamental plants the organic way for commercial gain. It means taking care of a slightly bigger garden since you will now be targeting local markets unlike the one's you had before which caters to only the needs of your family. With a commercial goal in mind, you will have to consider the viability of your produce in your local market.
It's a good thing that nowadays, organically grown produce are preferred and are actually sought after by the ordinary shoppers. This is among the reasons why advertisers are always focusing on the organic nature of their products. They often advertise that their products are 100% organic. Some, however, are only saying these things to sell their products.
Organic gardening means absolutely not using any kind of chemical pesticides, fertilizers, plant antibiotics, or even artificial growth promoters from the time the plants were being cultivated up to the time they are being harvested. There's no compromises in organic gardening, it's either you use chemical stuff or you don't.
With this in mind, shoppers are focusing their organic needs towards community based organic garden growers. They usually will go to small scale producers instead of going to supermarkets where they rely only on what the packaging tells them. In community based organic growers, you can actually see the freshness of the produce, the garden themselves, and how the growers care for their gardens.
As a garden grower, your aim is to make some profit from your organic garden. Although, your initial focus is your immediate community, it is not bad to set a goal that you eventually ship your products to a wider market. But we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves.
In order to get a substantial profit to elicit motivation, you need to develop a focused marketing strategy. This means, having a marketing strategy in place even before you plant your crops. You already have a target market in mind and you already have a plan to reach that target. In this way, you can eliminate wastage of produce by not planting unnecessarily crops or plants that will not sell well in the market.
There are a number of ways to dispose of your produce. You can setup a small stall on your own yard every weekend, for example. Your neighbor can easily pass the word that there are fresh organic vegetables or fruits two or three blocks away.
You can also use the so called tail-gate marketing approach where you park your van along the roadside and sell your produce directly to passersby. This is a fast and cheap way to sell your produce but it is not the most effective. You're putting too much hope that people will stop and buy your produce.
But if you really want to market your organic produce, you can go to a farmer's market and supply your produce there. The good thing about a farmer's market is that they are a little lenient when it comes to consistency of quality. They pay you what your produce is worth.
Another advantage of a farmer's market is establishing a network of contacts of both customers and dealers or suppliers. It will serve as your gateway to commercial viability.
Market organic gardening focuses on the commercial aspects of gardening. It has added responsibilities since you now have to answer to your customers but it should always carry one thing, the love you have for gardening.
