In addition to providing the opportunity for on-farm pickup, Sarah Judd of Meadow Lynn Market Garden holds seedlings sales at local, independent businesses. Here, Judd chats with a customer at a seedling sale at the Good Bread Company in Vittoria, Ontario.
There’s a lot of upside for the small farmer thinking about venturing into seedling sales. CSA or market garden farmers may already be starting seedlings for their own use, and seedling sales can build on that foundation. In addition, they provide cash flow prior to the main growing season, and they’re a venue for re-connecting to the customers after the winter.
Timing is everything
Hanna Jacobs, owner of Matchbox Garden Seed Co. near Caledonia, Ontario, notes that timing is critical when planting your seeds. “It’s really important to find that sweet spot when planting, so every plant you take to market is at its best,” she notes. Because Jacobs attends a number of seedling sales, as well as fulfilling contracts for wholesale customers, she needs seedlings in prime condition for dates spread over a long time frame. She staggers her planting time to ensure seedlings are at the optimum point in their growth when they go to the target venue.
Though she has only one seedling sale date to worry about, Angie Koch, owner and farm manager at Fertile Ground Farm in St. Agatha, Ontario, recognizes the need to have plants at different stages for different purposes. Although Fertile Ground transplants seedlings into the CSA garden around the same time as their annual seedling sale, Koch offsets the planting time of the plants destined for the two purposes. She prefers smaller, easier-to-handle seedlings for the planting into the CSA garden, while her seedling sale customers want to see more established plant.
The medium is the message
Selecting the right growing medium, notes Jacobs, is important. Jacobs prepares a blend that incorporates an ocean mix, sheep manure, and peat in equal parts. She finds that a lot of mixes are too light or peaty for her liking. She’s pleased with the ocean mix, which she gets from an East Coast supplier, noting that after she started using it, “I couldn’t get over how much better the plants looked.”
Marcelle Paulin, co-owner and co-founder of Sleepy G Farm in Pass Lake, Ontario, agrees that soil is important. “You should get the best quality potting medium you can afford,” she says. Though Sleepy G hasn’t yet ventured into the sales end of seedlings, it’s on the docket for next year. Still, since the start of their CSA operation 10 years ago, Sleepy G has grown tens of thousands of seedlings for their own use, so they have a good understanding of the ins and outs of the growing process. Paulin uses a purchased potting mix, which she fortifies with inputs like kelp, green sand, rock dust, and alfalfa meal.
Koch uses a local organic greenhouse’s peat-based mix that contains organic amendments, and applies pearlite as a fertilizer. Sarah Judd, who operates Meadow Lynn Market Garden near Simcoe, Ontario, favours a peat moss mix with composted cow manure added. Since part of the family farming operation includes a dairy herd, she has a plentiful supply of the latter ingredient. Though she makes a point not to over-fertilize, Judd adds vermicompost mix as the season progresses, as needed.
Managing the conditions
For Koch, humidity control and air circulation in the greenhouse are key factors in nurturing the best possible plant for the customer. “Dampness on your seedlings is the best way to spread disease,” she says.
Temperature is another critical factor. Since Sleepy G is located near Thunder Bay, Ontario,
Located near Thunder Bay, Ontario, Sleepy G Farm has the added challenge of keeping seedlings happy in a cold climate. Sleepy G does their propagation in a 30 by 48 double-walled poly hoop house, using a wood-fired boiler system as part of the heating strategy.
Paulin has the added challenge of keeping her seedlings happy in a cold climate. Sleepy G does their propagation in a 30 by 48 double-walled poly hoop house, with air between the two walls providing extra insulation. The greenhouse, equipped with a wood-fired boiler and a heat exchanger, is generally able to keep the temperature in the desired range. When the outdoor temperature dips below -6 Celsius, Paulin pulls row covers over her seedlings for an extra layer of protection.
Providing the right amount of water is also key. Over-watering, Koch notes, can be just as detrimental as under-watering. Paulin agrees, noting that Sleepy G has found it best to assign one person to the watering task, to ensure consistency and avoid yo-yoing between over- and under-watering.
Hardening off is an important step in helping the plants make the transition from the sheltered world of the greenhouse or hoop house, to their ultimate home in the garden. Jacobs transfers her plants from the greenhouse to the unheated hoop house two weeks before they’re due to go to market. She leaves both ends of the hoop house open for wind and cool air during the day, finding that sufficient to harden her plants.
Reaching your customers
Judd’s seedling sales were a natural outgrowth of her CSA operation, and many of her early seedling sale clients were CSA customers. As the seedling operation grew, she took steps to expand her customer base. Partnering with the local horticultural society on plant sales proved to be a good avenue. She also holds seedling sales at small local businesses that attract people looking for something outside the mainstream, and provides an avenue for online orders.
Like Judd, Jacobs offers online ordering. She attends a variety of plant sales during the spring. In addition, she’s arranged for a handful of health food stores and independently-owned garden centres to carry her seedlings.
For almost two decades, Koch’s seedlings were offered as part of an annual event in Kitchener which included a number of vendors. The event outgrew the venue, and Fertile Ground also found the logistics of transporting 4,000 seedlings to be prohibitive. Now, they hold their own seedling sale on-farm.
With the change in venue, Koch grouped the products in separate tents so customers could easily find what they were looking for. She wishes she’d made the move to on-farm sales sooner, noting that crowded conditions and long lineups at the previous venue may have lost them some customers.
Fertile Ground has a long history in the Kitchener area, so some of their sales volume is a result of this long relationship. Koch also reaches out to potential customers through posters, email lists, sponsored ads on Facebook, and social media posts on sites catering to local horticultural and gardening groups.
When he operated Wilsonville Organics near Wilsonville, Ontario, Rick Posavad grew and sold a variety of seedlings, including 70 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, as well as heirloom peppers, salad greens, and other offerings. Posavad was fortunate in that signage at his location, on a busy road, drove a lot of drop-in traffic. He also took advantage of the opportunity to have information about his farm included on the local Norfolk County tourism web site to promote increased awareness.
I wish I’d known . . .
As with any other enterprise, the experience of growing and selling seedlings has provided learning points along the way.
For Jacobs, nailing down the best timing for starting seeds was a challenge. “Sometimes, it’s tempting to think you’ll get ahead by seeding a couple of weeks early, but all you end up with is leggy plants,” she says.
More than one of the interviewees had initially stayed away from offering items that a backyard gardener could easily grow from seed themselves. But Jacobs finds that lettuce seedlings offered in six-packs are a hot seller, and Judd also notes that lettuce, beet, and bean seedlings get snapped up. “You can’t assume the customer doesn’t want these products,” Judd says. “And sometimes, they can be your highest-margin sales.”
Koch started offering lettuce and bean seedlings five years ago. “We’ve quadrupled the amount of seedling greens we’ve sold in the past five years,” she says. She thinks it’s partly because “a lot of seeds are packaged in a larger volume than the backyard gardener needs. So, they can buy a few seedlings for about the same as they would pay for a packet of seeds, and someone has already done the work of getting them started.”
Worth the effort
Whether they ventured into seedling sales to utilize extra greenhouse space, or as an extension of their existing operations, the interviewees feel the effort is worth the payoff.
Seedling sales have evolved into Jacobs’ second-greatest source of income. “It was a practical way of expanding what I was already doing,” she says. “It’s a season-extender with a quick turn-around and low overhead.”
For Judd, seedling sales are an opportunity to promote her CSA and generate revenue at the start of the season. She’s already doing the work of starting seedlings for her own CSA, so a little extra effort to grow extras for sale is worth it.
Koch notes that when all is said and done, she doesn’t make a huge amount of profit on her seedling sales. However, the money generated helps offset the cost of heating the greenhouse for her own CSA seedlings, and other early-season costs.
Paulin sees the value in expanding Sleepy G’s scope to include seedling sales. “It’s a way of increasing your network, increasing your reach, and increasing market share,” she says. “In the end, the more individuals we get buying from us, the better.”
—Lisa Timpf