Sunday, December 12, 2010

Failure & Success

Sometimes it's hard to distinguish between failure & success.
Or rather - whether something is a failure or a success depends on how you look at it.
Here is a small example ...

This past season was an early season. Beginning in spring when the fruit trees blossomed, right through the harvest, crops were about 10 -14 days ahead of the average. Thinking ahead of our marketing season, we became concerned that we could run low on produce to sell before the markets shut down for the year.

What to do?
So we continued seeding vegetables later than we usually do and experimented with a few new fall crops ... like ornamental cabbages & kale. We purchased some seed, planted them, nurtured the seedlings, transplanted them - and waited till they were large enough to sell. They looked beautiful! Who wouldn't want some bright, colourful plants to liven up the fall garden?




 Apparently many people wouldn't want our bright, colourful plants to liven up their fall gardens! Sales were so slow! I realized that we had started our cabbage & kale too late & they were too small to attract customers.

What to do?
Load them on the jitney, head out to the orchard and dump them!



Oliver wasn't concerned at all about the slow sales & lost income - it was a beautiful fall day and he was going to enjoy it!


Eventually he lost interest and just sat dreaming in the sun ...


But then he heard something ...


 looked into it ...


and success! He caught himself a little snack!


What about the cabbage & kale - failure or success?

- while we didn't sell many plants, we did sell enough to cover the cost of the seed.
- there was some labour costs for transplanting which we did not totally recoup.
- our window boxes and planters looked great all fall filled with cabbages & kale.
- we offered the plants to our CSA members and many took some.
- we gave lots away and made people happy.
- I learned a lot about growing ornaments cabbage & kale which will be useful next season.

All in all, I'm willing to call it a success!

2 comments:

  1. Oliver is a big boy. Looks like he's living the life, even if he doesn't share my appreciation for kale or cabbage.

    ReplyDelete
  2. No kidding Oliver is living the life!
    While strictly a barn cat, his goal is to become a house cat. Not gonna happen!!

    ReplyDelete