Mumsey,

In another thread, you asked the price we were selling our tomatoes for. We sold at the farmer's market in a nearby town today. We have so many Brandywines with catfacing? and we can't possibly juice all of them or eat all of them. We have 56 brandywines plants and the fruits are averaging a pound each. So today we offered our "pretties" at $1.00 per pound and our "uglies" for 25 cents per pound. People would look at the uglies, but they wanted the pretties. I think we only sold 3 or 4 of the ugly ones. Even though they are ugly and deformed, there is a lot of good fruit in them and they still taste great. Guess I'm gonna process tomatoes tomorrow.

Mrs. K

I used your hamburger bun recipe to make sticky cinnamon rolls for the farmer's market today. I took 22 to market and brought 4 home. One customer bought 2..came back and bought 2 more. Then she came back and handed me 6 bucks and wanted 6 more. They were eating these sticky rolls in the car!!!

This market is in a very small town and they have no more than 10 vendors. They only charge 10 dollars for the site, with a max cost of 90 dollars for the season (16 market dates for the season). I think that I'll be making these rolls for the market again. Thanks again for the recipe.

Binny

I just want to agree that customers certainly don't want even the littlest blemish on their tomatoes. I am growing heirlooms and Goliath hybrid. The Goilath are big and beautiful but not as tasty as heirlooms. The people appreciate the idea of the heirlooms but they want absolutely no blemishes, not even a fingernail mark. And heirloom have such thin skin they get horizontal splits really easily. I keep the uglies for me and friends and workmates. I sell anything small as canners with the paste tomatoes and keep all the big, nice ones for selling, along with cherries, especially Sungold.
I am hoping to take the time to make lots of fresh salsa and sell it. I'll have plenty of 'uglies' and no one will even know that is what made the salsa!

thank you for the complement on the recipe, it is a good one, isn't it.

Now do you know the rule? You have to say a prayer for the person you got the recipe from whenever you begin to make the recipe.

mk

Thanks Binnylou. I had a woman wanting "seconds" for canning. She stuck her nose up at 40 cents a pound, bulk rate. She thought she could get them elsewhere for less. Good luck.

The tomatoes are crap this year, quantity but not quality. But it depends how you define quality, the skins are not pretty but the insides are good!

Farmer's Market here is $25 for the season or $5 per single day. I'm trying to figure a way to do it next year.

Last week's shopper had an ad for U-Pick tomatoes at 40 cents per pound. I raised these plants from seeds and I don't think I would let strangers near them. Guess I'm personally attached to them

I don't blame you, binnylou. I know the feeling.

People are strange. I know I've eaten some pretty ugly looking tomatoes that tasted like heaven.

It's been a crappy year, no doubt about it, and it makes me so mad that shoppers would begrudge a local grower a few cents and then spend hundreds of dollars to shop at The Gap for clothes and stuff like that. Oh, don't get me started.

A little tip for you gardeners with too many or deformed tomatoes-I put mine in the blender (after coring and cutting out the bad spots.) I then freeze them with no other prep. These are my soup and stew tomatoes. Mid-winter I'm still eating my own tomatoes.

good tip rgriisser,

Hopefully, I can use it next year.

This year - I was still buying tomatoes at the store most days....

I eat tomatoes every day....

Is that wrong??

quote:

Originally posted by binnylou:
Mumsey,


I used your hamburger bun recipe to make sticky cinnamon rolls for the farmer's market today. I took 22 to market and brought 4 home. One customer bought 2..came back and bought 2 more. Then she came back and handed me 6 bucks and wanted 6 more. They were eating these sticky rolls in the car!!!

This market is in a very small town and they have no more than 10 vendors. They only charge 10 dollars for the site, with a max cost of 90 dollars for the season (16 market dates for the season). I think that I'll be making these rolls for the market again. Thanks again for the recipe.

Binny

Wow - you're lucky Binnylou. Around here farmers' market vendors aren't allowed to sell baked goods unless they come from a health-department approved kitchen - something most small independent vendors can't afford to provide. While I can understand the desire to "protect" the public, I wish they were a bit more lax so that more of us market consumers were able to enjoy more homemade baked goods.

I agree with you binnylou--I'd rather pick them and give them away than sell them as a "u pik em"- it's not worth the destruction that someone who doesn't garden can wreak!