A Colorful Market Table

[Cole_Robbie]

Here's this morning's table. I had a lot of help from my girlfriend making bouquets. I had the larger bouquets priced at $7 or $6 without the vase, and I only sold about half of them, sadly. I'll try $5 next week, but there just isn't enough demand to sell everything I take. There is one other vendor selling bouquets, and I only saw one go by in a customer's hand all morning, so it's not like I'm being out-done by other vendors.

[bower]

Oh my, those bulrushes are amazing! And your focal blooms and color are great.

I still think you need to up the ante on the leafy filler side. Anything with smaller leaves and interesting shape. We used poplar leaves for my bro's wedding when the boxwood didn't show up. Maybe there's a shrub or two around your place that you can savage I mean prune..

Not that it will change the market, sometimes it just isn't there, but it will give you another little edge... when sales are marginal, it's the extra mile that counts.

[Salsacharley]

They look great Cole. I know how disappointing it is to start with high hopes for the day and reality doesn't cooperate. Donate you unsold bouquets to a hospital or extended care facility and take a write off for your market value (get receipts) unless you can recover more some other way.

[greenthumbomaha]

Hey Cole, when my garden club gets together and makes bouquets, the jar or vase is heavily decorated with ribbon and thick twine. It gives the arrangement more of a high end finished look. You could probably get a dollar or two more with a magazine type presentation. I also think there needs to be more space between the vases. I like a "full" selection, but personally I prefer to check out the different flowers in each bouquet. Refill the table as needed. If you were in my area, you could charge double your price.


Maybe toss a high priced woven basket arrangement in too. It may not sell, but gives some visual interest to catch attention.



Having said that, your flowers are fantastic!



- Lisa

[Cole_Robbie]

Thanks for all the help and kind words.

I think I may try to sell individual stems and filler material next Saturday and see how that goes. The vendor across from me sells a lot of glad stems. Maybe I can sell filler to his customers.

[bower]

Don't give up on the bouquets, Cole! They are lovely in their own right and obviously have a market. But if the market goers are buying loose material to arrange their own bouquets, that's a good idea to increase your sales by offering some as well. You have fantastic focal blooms and the bulrush is a stunning linear element, I could see those selling to someone making their own, too!

I was reading about floral design, and found this page that is like a coles notes of the subject. So for your table, you could group focals, linear elements and filler in three buckets for those buying by the stem, for example. I don't know if the casual consumer intellectualizes how they arrange flowers, but I found it helpful to me to understand why I am especially attracted to certain arrangements. To my eye it is the contrasts that make the difference - color, size, texture, shape. And I personally am drawn to asymmetrical arrangements too. Anyway it is just words but food for thought in the biz. Hopefully it will help me to do it better next time I get the chance...
http://www.botanicadirect.com/en/flo...ign/index.html

I was looking at some pics too online, here are some examples and thoughts about it. (As an artist btw, I learned to think critically and also to never take criticism negatively. Criticism is the gift that helps me to improve - and even if I disagree in the end, an opportunity to reflect on the art and understand my audience a little better. Constructive critics are best, but even harsh words are like morsels of chocolate to me that I gobble up with a smile! So forgive me for having so much to say, but this is what I like to do best...)
This first one reminds me of the bouquets I made at the farm. All the elements are there but a little bit rustic or sloppy.
The second one has great contrast and amazing texture in the filler, but the focals are not nicely balanced at least from the angle that the pic was taken, and linear elements are absent or weak.
The third one has very nice color contrast and a more or less equal balance between focals, linear elements and leaf shape in the filler. This one reminds me of the lovely contrast between focal and linear elements in the bouquets on the left of your table in the first pic.
The last one I think is the best one I saw last night. Surprising to me it has almost no greenery at all, no neutral colors, and yet the contrast is superb, not only the yellow and reds but the balance of small and large is really pleasing. The use of unopened buds as linear elements is also great for the buyer, as they will continue to change and contribute to the value of the bouquet over time.

[oakley]

Going back to last weeks pic, I liked the crate...where the small water jars were inside
and the crate looked massive and full of the flowers. Similar to a nursery where a full 1020
tray of blooms looks so good, then bring home a six-pack and they look weenie in the garden,
You presented little tussy-mussies from a glance. Maybe hide the tiny vase. Or cut longer stems.
...Same amount of flowering but would be much fuller.

A wooden crate would be a good visual or a big basket full of the water glasses.

The small bouquets just Look tiny.

Also just the time of year. When we had massive snow cover my house full of sunflowers and muscari
was gorgeous, then the rest of them out on the deck with the early micro toms was also a
welcome sight as nothing else was blooming, not even leaves on the trees. People tend to like
flowers out of season...or things they are fond of but don't have. Most people may already have
their pots of flowers on the porch already. Or hanging.

15 years ago I started putting in a couple bags of perennial bulbs every season, and started a
big wind block wildlife berm outside the garden, about 50ft long. The chartreuse viburnum is
stunning. Then turns white. Long bloom time. I take a walk every Sunday morning and make a
rough bouquet with that weeks bloom. I could easily make about 50 a week.
(I did all that for a possible future market selling....doubt that will happen).

I think the sunflowers do so well in pots because it is so unusual out of season. And they last so long
over cut flowers. I did not realize that one tiny muscari bulb puts up multiple flowers. Three
bulbs is maybe 10-20cents. Get the edge over the other guy. No one will buy his if yours has
something extra. (I got mine cheap on sale last fall and put them in my crisper fridge drawer)

A friend of mine that does sell at market has two aprox 50ft rows of perennials.

[coronabarb]

Well, they are just gorgeous and I hate to see you have to sell them for $5. But, I do understand not wanting to take them home again. Does your farmers' market have a Facebook page? If so, see if they will post a photo of your lovely bouquets.

Our market's page is at Umpqua Valley Farmers' Market. We only have one vendor selling flowers but they are huge, spectacular things with many unusual flowers in them.

[Cole_Robbie]

I sold single stems this morning instead of making bouquets. The flowers are cheaper that way, but I sell more. I think it ends up being about the same amount of money, just less work, at least in my limited experiments thus far.

[bower]

Mmmm... your blooms (and your basil!) are really sumptuous, as always. The same money for less work sounds like a win to me!

Nice to see basil back in your lineup... I do think it helps to have diversity of products - someone who is thinking about 'food' or 'my kitchen garden' might stop for that and decide to buy a potted sunflower or marigolds too, who would just walk right past cut flowers because they aren't looking for it.

[Cole_Robbie]

Thanks, Bower. The basil is Emily, my favorite variety. I sow it too thick, but customers seem to like that. Priced at $1, I can sell one flat of 18 pots per market. At $1.50 I sell half a flat, and at $2 I sell hardly any. My market is very competitive on price, to put it mildly. Tomatoes hit $1.25 a pound even before July arrived. They will be $1 soon. At the neighboring markets, tomatoes are selling for $2.50 a pound.

The dwarf sunflowers in pots are my biggest summer success, and much easier to sell than cut flowers. I keep growing more and they always seem to sell. They are so much work to raise, at least the way I do, that I'm not worried about any other vendors copying me. Doing so much work to raise a $4 flower is not exactly an enticing proposition. I am most interested in automating the procedure and being able to produce on a larger scale, but that is a long term endeavor.

[clkeiper]

Cole, It actually shocks me that people buy a sunflower blooming in a pot... that lasts no longer than a cut bouquet. good for you. And yes, it is a lot of work to raise a 4.00 sunflower. I am lucky to get a dollar for the exact same cut flower.

[bower]

The market is cruel! But we live by what we learn... so much basil... so much something else. Really tough where you are living Cole, the competition is brutal.

I've been in the same position, hanging on because no one else can offer this at the price. It's a hard place but you know you're still in the game because you work harder and paid less.

[Al@NC]

Cole,
Are you not selling the micro's this season? I haven't heard you talk about them much...


Al

[Cole_Robbie]

I sold a few flats of micros and dwarfs early in the spring, but my spring weather was harshly cold. April was much colder than March. My tomato plants suffered and my pepper plants refused to grow entirely. My plan for next spring is to get better climate control in the greenhouse. I need to make better enclosures over my greenhouse benches than just hoops. The cold weather got me this spring after everything grew enough to require more space than I had on my covered benches.

I suspect that I can probably sell at least a few micros in pots all summer, if I grew them out to the stage of almost having ripe tomatoes on them before I take them to market. Just like they want a flower already blooming, customers tend to like tomatoes and pepper plants that already have fruit on them. I am going to grow out a few super-hots and test that theory into the fall. Trying to sell a pepper plant in September or October is nuts, but I think it might be possible if it was mature enough.