Last week marked the final business plan presentation in the Growing Farmers class. Our group shared their strategies and goals for their farm businesses while the others evaluated. This class and CSU Extension have been so helpful and formative in my business understanding and got me very excited for the up and coming farm businesses.
The presenters are people trying to make a difference. Boots on the ground, raising food, and marketing their goods directly to our community. It is so inspiring to meet entrepreneurs focused on not only making a profit, but doing so selling medicine in the form of food. Keep your eyes out for new farm businesses this year, show up for your community as those folks are showing up for you.
I was happy to get my presentation over. It marked my office time as dwindling. Now is the time to get to work and start growing plants and tending soil. It has been an intense couple months diving deep into spreadsheets, enterprise budgets, projected revenues, grant applications, and more. Now that a framework has been built I can get back into the wild, where I belong.
Our greenhouse plantings have continued with our first succession of lettuce. We have also been working to create a retail focused nursery at the farm stand to supply Regionally Adapted Plant Starts for your gardens this year. Keep us in mind when you are putting together your garden! We will have plant starts bred to thrive in Colorado available early May.
While our soil is still too wet and frozen to do earthwork in the fields, we have been preparing ground under tunnels for the first plantings of the season. Spinach is ready to go in, and the first waves of other greens will soon be getting directly sown. To think only 2 months until the first farmers markets and the start of our CSA!
Not sure if I have mentioned this but we have added some new aspects to the Folks Farm CSA. A Fruit Share option has been posted. While we cannot guarantee all the fruit will be organic, darn cherries, we will be sourcing organic preferred fruit for several weeks of the season. Also I am very excited to announce we have partnered with The Regional and Little Bird Bakery to offer Folks Farm CSA Members discounts at these supportive restaurants!
I hope you have been enjoying the “Farmer’s Notes” blog. If you would like to share it with your friends or via social media we would love to grow our following! Until next week Folks.
Sounds awesome, Alex! Thanks for being an inspiration to a fellow small businessman re: taking the back office technical knowledge gain seriously so you can grow the front end service!