hey everyone welcome back to digging deeper today i'm touring again at fqt farm and i
want to show you three crops that are part of our game plan to be the first at market
with some really really awesome veggies
so before you guys ask us uh i'll be sharing you some notes some crop notes on these three crops
you'll find them on the link below and those three crops we grow them here at fqt farm in
our greenhouses and part of our game plan and our strategy is to be able to use these greenhouses
a for four season farming so in the winter we're using them and obviously in the spring
summer we're using them for heat loving crops but we're also looking for pockets few beds here and
there where we can grow certain crops with the sole goal of being the first at farmers market
with these really really early veggies there's two reasons why we're big on that strategy
and the first one is knowing from experience people get excited about vegetable when
vegetables are not even planted so as soon as it's warm outside as soon as farmers market
seasons are starting people are expecting the bounties and even if it's early may or early june
they're expecting celeries tomatoes we've been so unconditioned with supermarkets that this is the
expectation that a lot of clients have right or wrong for us as market gardeners the strategies
is to be there with some of those veggies and that does two import two important things
first one it probably out competes a lot of the bigger more mechanized growers
you're able to distance yourself with them because most of these growers are not you know don't have
little pockets they're not thinking in terms of few clients that are highly highly well served
they're thinking about volumes so if you're coming with early veggies and even if you don't
have a lot of them you know you'll attract the clients and that's really the key here the first
with the veggies at farmer's market will attract a lot of the clients for the rest of the season so
that's a good strategy and so the first crop that we grow here at the farm is those string beans
french filet type we grow them on atreus again inside the heated greenhouse
and it gives us six seven weeks of bountiful harvest chefs love them customers love them
there's a few tricks about how to do these well there's a few mistakes that you need to avoid
but overall it's not a hard crop to grow and again it provides us with super amazing early crops
of something that is green and healthy looking at our farm booth
to put you in context we're now you know mid-april and you know our goal is to be able to be first
of june at farmer's market and even earlier with those veggies and so inside the other greenhouse
we have two crops that are really interesting in terms of the amount of time and space that they
occupy but most importantly the the income that they gave us per square foot so one of them the
first is uh summer squash some people call them zucchinis we call them here courgettes
so they're little they're little summer squash we harvest them when they're not too big
and that's a crop that a lot of growers grow out there but the trick to grow summer squash and
make a really good profit with them is to grow them before everybody has them in their fields
when they become so abundant that there's a loss of interest and the prices go down so
being really really early with those courgettes will make a big difference in terms of the
profitability of that crop again there's a few tricks about learning how to pollenize
them well how to keep them free of certain disease and certain pests but all overall it's not
such a hard crop to grow and again it's really one that can make a lot of money per square foot the
other one and that's pretty uncommon to see this drop in a greenhouse is early fingerling potatoes
you know growing early potatoes having them at your farm booth before everybody's arriving with
potatoes is one way to really create a buzz and that's what these potatoes they're all
different colors smaller size really tender skin really beautiful really tasty and people get so
excited about them every year they're talking to us about when the early potatoes will be coming
back again and so it's one of these crops where it's not solely about yields it's not solely about
the production per se but it's about creating a buzz and creating a buzz for what you're doing
is one of the key to be successful at the farmers market to be a successful grower
well that's it for this week i hope you guys like the episode uh don't forget there's a
lot of cool notes about these three crops all the information is on the link below
that can really help you and you know remember there's the master class that's always there
if you want to learn really in-depth about how to grow these crops and all the others you can check
that out wondering what you guys are planting as early crops and what are the benefits of growing
them if you want to share that we'll read the comments i think the community would appreciate
i hope you guys are well i hope things are growing this is it for this week don't forget to subscribe
and tell your friends about the channel i think it's pretty cool we're rolling here season
has really started it's warm again and we're happy campers j i'm out see you next week you