wow, what a beautiful vermont winter day. sunshine, snow glistening, bright blue sky and a comfortable 32 degrees. spencer worked on the greenhouse endwalls and preparing for a workday tomorrow with friends to put the plastic on. while my mom and dave took angus for a little while this afternoon, i chipped away at our farm production plan. i don't know how other new farmers put all of this information together. it doesn't seem like there is an obvious method. here is mine:
1. determine markets, wholesale accounts
2. put together a sales projection sales sheet for each account/market which includes - # of weeks each crop will be sold, how many units per crop per week, selling price per unit, total production, total sales
3. graph a harvesting schedule to determine flow of successions and workload per week
4. from all of this information, i create my production plan with about 20 columns of information regarding total units needed for each crop, yields per bed, total beds needed, lineal footage per succession and so on
this is how i get started. now, we have numbers to work with on bed space and projected income. at this point, we spend alot of time making adjustments. after all of our considerations, we end up with a solid plan to use as a base for our seed order, greenhouse seeding schedule and field planting chart. i like organizing this information. by keeping good records, each year gets a little easier because you can build on information from the previous year. it is important not to just organize this information in the beginning of the year but to stay on top of it daily while it is fresh in my mind and is a manageable task. however, i would be curious as to how other farmers put seed orders together. i thought this would be a good workshop topic for beginning farmers at the nofa conference. just another piece of information that makes all this a little crazier... seed companies all label seeds in different measurements... mini packets, packets, 1/16 oz, 1/4 oz, A, B or C. i need a translator. and i also need a solid chart for crop yields per 100 feet. this i can do a better job at tracking.
i love numbers, problem solving, the seed order challenge. being a farmer involves many different skills and roles. a mathematician is just one of them.
1. determine markets, wholesale accounts
2. put together a sales projection sales sheet for each account/market which includes - # of weeks each crop will be sold, how many units per crop per week, selling price per unit, total production, total sales
3. graph a harvesting schedule to determine flow of successions and workload per week
4. from all of this information, i create my production plan with about 20 columns of information regarding total units needed for each crop, yields per bed, total beds needed, lineal footage per succession and so on
this is how i get started. now, we have numbers to work with on bed space and projected income. at this point, we spend alot of time making adjustments. after all of our considerations, we end up with a solid plan to use as a base for our seed order, greenhouse seeding schedule and field planting chart. i like organizing this information. by keeping good records, each year gets a little easier because you can build on information from the previous year. it is important not to just organize this information in the beginning of the year but to stay on top of it daily while it is fresh in my mind and is a manageable task. however, i would be curious as to how other farmers put seed orders together. i thought this would be a good workshop topic for beginning farmers at the nofa conference. just another piece of information that makes all this a little crazier... seed companies all label seeds in different measurements... mini packets, packets, 1/16 oz, 1/4 oz, A, B or C. i need a translator. and i also need a solid chart for crop yields per 100 feet. this i can do a better job at tracking.
i love numbers, problem solving, the seed order challenge. being a farmer involves many different skills and roles. a mathematician is just one of them.
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