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Ben Phillips interviews three operations that engage in upick agritourism at the Great Lakes EXPO, in Grand Rapids, MI. Originally recorded December 8, 2021.
A live weekly interview and discussion focused on vegetable production challenges and opportunities brought to you by the Great Lakes Vegetable Producers Network. We grow more together. JOIN US LIVE! We will be broadcasting live via Zoom at 12:30 ET/11:30 CT every Wednesday from the first week of March to the first week of September. Login at www.glveg.net/listen.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:00:00):
Hello, this is Ben Phillips from Michigan State University, coming to you from the Great Lakes EXPO, where we experimented with recording a live session for the Vegetable Beet Podcast. I interviewed three different groups of guests from three different farms about how they managed their You-Pick operations. And they ranged from very large multi farm organizations down to smaller scale operations, and also a very different model of education for different wild forage species that can fit into many different scenarios on a farm, in state land, in public parks and things like that. The first interview is with the largest of the three groups and it's called Blakes Farms from Eastern Michigan, Macomb County and take it away, Ben. So Blakes welcome. There's three of you here.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:01:02):
Thank you for the invite. We're very proud and honored to be here.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:01:07):
And can you state your name for the audience?
lonnie (second speaker) (00:01:09):
Lonnie Decker. And I've been with Blakes for over 10 years. Farm planner, done a lot of different jobs at Blakes. So, very-
ben (first and main speaker) (00:01:22):
She was my way into Blakes. She's very easy to talk to and it's how I invited her and she invited three more, only two could make it.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:01:34):
My name is Brent Christensen. I am the newbie on the farm. I came in as a farm manager this summer. Blakes has been a great experience so far, taught me a lot and I look forward to sharing some experiences with you guys.
steven (third speaker) (00:01:51):
I am Steven Campbell. I've been with Blakes for 17 years. In this presentation I am the planter. I'm a lot of things.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:02:04):
Steven does everything at the farm. When we're in trouble, we call Steven.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:02:09):
And in our brief getting to know each other before we started, I think you've been there the longest 17 years. Sounds like it. Yes.
steven (third speaker) (00:02:18):
Oh, sorry. Yes, I've been with Blakes for a long time, especially at this panel.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:02:24):
So you've all noticed they're matching outfits. And one of Blakes signature outputs is a hard cider called flannel mouth, and I'm assuming that might be part of-
lonnie (second speaker) (00:02:38):
It definitely could be, but we just... we do tend to go towards flannel in the company and this is our farm logo. So we have the Blakes heart cider logo and we have the farm logo.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:02:51):
Yeah. And that's getting to one of my first questions actually, Lonnie, and this is directed at you. So how many farms is Blakes? Can you give the audience some idea of what Blakes is?
lonnie (second speaker) (00:03:04):
So we have three retail farms. We have three retail locations, with farms on each location, we have the main one, the Blake's Orchard & Cider Mill. We have the Blakes Big Apple, and we have... it used to be called Blakes Almont Garden Center, it is now Blakes Backyard. It's been transformed into a testing room slash garden center slash nursery slash farm store.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:03:33):
Okay. And about how many crops for You-Pick? So this is a You-Pick focused session about how many You-Pickable crops are you guys running?
lonnie (second speaker) (00:03:43):
So we're doing about 30 crops.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:03:46):
And those aren't like varieties within a crop. Those are different crops.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:03:50):
Correct.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:03:51):
Okay. Now this might be split between you and Steve. Can you describe a little bit about what kind of fruit you guys are running, and I know you do vegetables, which I think in the grand scheme of things is not as common as a You-Pick except for pumpkins as fruit is. So I'd really like to know about what you found is a You-Pick vegetable that seems to work.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:04:15):
So at Blakes we've always done a tomato and a pepper. All right. And what we found is with the vast people that we have come out to the farm, not just in the fall, they wanted more, it wasn't... Fruit is there, but fruit is gone. When it's in, it's in. When it's gone, it's gone. So when we started doing vegetables and we said, "All right, we can expand on this." So we did eggplant.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:04:44):
That was your first move outside of tomato, pepper?
lonnie (second speaker) (00:04:46):
That was pretty much. There's other things, but that was our big transition into other vegetables. And that really caught on well a lot of eggplant sold. Then we wanted to do cucumbers and pickles, but we wanted to do it differently, so we trellis them. And it was a great endeavor, worked hard at it. Unfortunately last year was not the best year to grow pickles and cucumbers with all the rain we encountered. We did put them on plastic, we trellis them, but there was weeks where you couldn't get in there, it was still wet. So we're not done trying that. We're going to keep going at it, but we want to make sure that... Hopefully it won't be this whatever again. And we also trellis our peapods, which we've grown for years now. And the people love that also, the ease of picking the... We get a better yield. Our yield on our cucumbers and pickles were better. Trellising is definitely a great thing for You-Pick. It's the ease of picking and the people enjoyed it.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:05:58):
Yeah. So a follow up on this. When you pick a crop like beans commercially, there's two ways to do it. You can do a multi pick bean, or you can do a mechanical harvest of a bean. So you do it once and the crop's pretty much trashed. How would you categorize a crowd of people through a bean crop or a pea crop? Are they like a mechanical harvester? Are they trashing it? Or are they like a-
lonnie (second speaker) (00:06:26):
Well, this is a great question. I'm going to hand this over to Steven, because he has done a lot of the bean work. He does the planting, the harvesting, well used to do the harvesting. We've moved that off of him. But hold on, we'll give this over to Steven.
steven (third speaker) (00:06:39):
So in my experience, the customers are very gentle picking these beans and they last for weeks. And then when we do go out there with the picker, it just destroys them, very much so. The biggest thing about that is we plant beans week after week, after week to extend the season and to have something available the whole season and it works great for us.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:07:12):
How many plantings do you end up going through with a crop like that? And are there other crops that you follow a very similar week after week planting routine on?
steven (third speaker) (00:07:21):
Yes. Beans and sweet corn. We plant once a week, depending on weather. And we do eight to 12 plantings of each.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:07:34):
Yeah. And then, so for the multi pick things that are a little longer lasting like tomatoes, maybe peppers, those are fewer plant things.
steven (third speaker) (00:07:40):
So I believe this year we ended up doing it mostly in two sessions to try to have an early pick and then a late pick, that way we didn't run out when we run out of other stuff as well.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:07:57):
We need to protect that second crop. Let the people that come in the summertime enjoy the pickles, the peppers, the tomatoes. But in the fall when it's so busy and the orchard's so full, you have to have that alternative crop to go to because otherwise you can't get them all in that patch.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:08:20):
And the other important factor of having multiple patches of crops in a You-Pick facility is we're open seven days a week. And in order to handle pest issues or fungicide issues or whatnot, we need the ability to spray crop at times still, and have that PHI to be able to close one section and still offer that crop to our customers because it's hard to transmit that information, that certain stuff is going to be closed certain days. So we as a company want to have that ability if somebody walks in our front door, that they can go out and pick the crop they came here for.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:08:52):
Yeah. Yeah. I was really impressed when I visited your farm with how well pickable areas are delineated. You do a really good job with that. Can you talk a little bit about that? What have you found works best to keep people where they need to be versus where they shouldn't be?
lonnie (second speaker) (00:09:09):
What are you pointing at me for?
brent (fourth speaker) (00:09:14):
This was my first year dealing with You-Pick and the amount of people that we have here, and you quickly learn what works and what doesn't work. And when you think you have enough signage, double the amount of signage.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:09:31):
Caution tape.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:09:33):
We at Blakes have a melting pot of customers from the Detroit region and English is not their first language and whatnot. So directing traffic in certain ways, keeping stuff simplified as possible, the extra signage, the extra talk of our employees to answer questions and whatnot. Each thing helps a long way to get people where you want. And at the end of the day though, you will never crow every single person. People like to wander. People like to venture where they shouldn't. And you just have to do your best and learn from each experience and improve upon that as a company.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:10:15):
That's a good answer. Have you considered any signage of different languages? Is that ever come up or?
lonnie (second speaker) (00:10:22):
We have. We've discussed that last year and we're thinking of a QR code. So we would like to have that in place before the spring. So these signs they would just be able to use a QR code and would be in for however many different languages we would need.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:10:41):
That would be a really simple way to do that.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:10:43):
Yeah. We need that, "not ripe."
ben (first and main speaker) (00:10:49):
I had one other question about the diversity of the You-Pick crops. So apples, they bear for a time, another variety bears for a time, brambles bear for a time, but they ripen within those windows in a gradual phase. So it's essentially a multi pick thing. Some vegetables are like that too, but there's also a bunch of... When it comes to vegetables, there's a lot of single harvest things. Root crops. Has that ever come into a You-Pick situation on your farm? Like carrots, beets, or anything like that? Has that ever made it?
steven (third speaker) (00:11:24):
We definitely gave that a whirl this year, wanted to try that. I don't think it went very well.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:11:34):
We're not a bad beet grower or radish grower.
steven (third speaker) (00:11:38):
Radish. We grew radishes.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:11:38):
[crosstalk 00:11:38] Radishes grow.
steven (third speaker) (00:11:40):
It was not a good year to try this. We may have to try it again with better weather.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:11:47):
So you think the crop itself was a problem and not the... getting some attention to it for picking?
steven (third speaker) (00:11:53):
I think if you had it out there, they will come. They're there. They love to pick everything and anything.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:12:04):
At the end of the day, if you have proper signage and can get your customers to drive by that area or whatnot, you can sell a certain amount of any crop due to the number of people that we have through our farm, which is nice as a grower for me especially. It allows us to experiment with different things, find out what people like, didn't like, but yet we're still going to sell some of it. So we can start at a very small amount of a crop and if it works, we can build off of that in the long run, and we don't have to scale to huge amounts of size right away.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:12:36):
I see. Okay. Well, thank you for that. And I understand that you did a little bit of herbs and cut flowers, that's a newer thing. We have another guest that's going to talk more about cut flowers, but I'd like to hear your angle and we'll get another angle a little bit.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:12:53):
So we did. With the trending of cut flowers have been so popular lately. So we decided to put in a small area of cut flowers, then I picked flowers that would re-bloom. If you have a heavy cut, you would be able to get another bloom on there fast enough to where the customer wouldn't be disappointed. So we stuck with Zinnias. I don't know if I would do Cosmos ever again, but we did a lot of Rudbekia, some... What else did we do? Gallardia. We did a little bit of Dianthus. So it was a good... And even if... We had good sales with it. We didn't have great... We weren't killing it, but we did very well.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:13:46):
But like Brent said one day, he says, "Even if you didn't sell anything out of here, just the way it looked on the farm and the added color, and attraction that it brought people, even if they didn't cut the flowers, they were all taking pictures in them." So they loved that aspect. So it did work. Now herbs, that was my idea and I thought that was going to be this big hit.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:14:12):
Looking from the outside in, the practice of harvesting them doesn't seem all that different from cut flowers.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:14:18):
It's not. It's the same thing.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:14:19):
And it's like a vegetable in other ways. So you'd think the confluence of those two things would make it a smash, but you didn't find that-
lonnie (second speaker) (00:14:25):
I didn't find it that way. I thought, "Okay, if they're going to pick a tomato, they're going to pick some basil." But I think that it wasn't cut enough. It wasn't being cut regularly where we maybe should have gone out and cut it regularly. It went to seed too fast and other thoughts that we had, if we ever did do herbs again, we would do classes. We would do what you can... cooking with herbs, how to use herbs, how to dry herbs and maybe make that more of our initial startup into herbs.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:15:01):
Oh. Okay. Okay. Make it a more of a package deal.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:15:04):
Correct.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:15:04):
Okay. Well, that's great. Brent, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about what it's like as a farm manager of a farm of this size with multiple locations. You've got a lot of people who've got to know how to deal with the public, who come in annually and you've got to hire them annually, train them annually. And I know this is your first time in here. So can you give me your perspective on how you handle this or how you take it?
brent (fourth speaker) (00:15:36):
Yeah. So Blakes is one of the most unique farm situations to work at for managing or being an employee. Any day you can walk into the farm and you can have a set schedule, and it can just be totally thrown out the window based on how many customers are showing up, and the demands that are needed. So when I'm looking at the team that we have, I was lucky to come into a team that is very well versed in what they do and excels in handling the amount of people that they do. But you need a group of people that can roll with the flow a little bit and have experience in farming practices, but also be able to deal with customers in a professional set manner. There's a lot of people in the ag industry, especially in the operator type position that not used to dealing with thousands of people in their work base and building a team and setting your expectations for the team and sticking to your guns is a big thing.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:16:44):
And when it comes to hiring and whatnot, we have many, many roles that are filled on the farm by seasonal staff that are local people in our community that have been coming to help out with a farm for a long time. And we could not do what we do without that extra help and give the opportunity and experience without those extra people. So, for part-time guys, we're looking at guys that can handle public very well, can be reliable, show up on time, be flexible because as many of you guys know in You-Pick and various farms like that, it's very easy to have people sitting around not doing anything based on how many customers are coming to your farm or weather event, and having employees that are understanding standing of, "Hey, I might need you to come in this day when you work plant, or I might not need you to work today, because it's going to rain."
brent (fourth speaker) (00:17:39):
Super helpful for us as managers as well. And then when I'm looking to hire new people, experience is an important thing. But my number one thing I'm looking for is work ethic and people that are willing to learn and have the drive to be well rounded individuals and not necessarily just be stuck on how they learned how to do things in their past.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:18:03):
Okay. Do you have to figure out who's going to work best in a certain location, because you've got three different places where this stuff's happening?
brent (fourth speaker) (00:18:15):
For the farm team, us as individuals on the farm team, we handle all different locations. Nobody is set in stone for a specific location built within our farm team. Our members have more specific roles that they handle with Lonnie, myself or ownership making suggestions on how they handle their responsibilities the best. But we don't try to itemize things by location due to the widespread need of different equipment at each location and whatnot. It's easier to work out of a central location and branch out as a farm team.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:18:54):
I see. Okay. So one thing you'll notice if you go to the Blakes website and you get to their main splash page, there's a lot you can do there. And one of the things I thought was interesting and unique is that there's a link that you can click on that says, plan your experience or something like that. And with a farm of your size and the number of farms, I think that's a real good move because if you just roll up and want to do something, you might be at the wrong one. Can you tell me a little bit about how you came to that decision and how well it's working and how do you make sure the customer is feeling like they're getting received to the right place, and they're going to have the experience they're looking for?
lonnie (second speaker) (00:19:43):
Right. So basically the first thing we always do is we do a weekly report that goes out on our website site of what is available to pick and at which location, because every location is different. Blakes Backyard does not have the apple crop that the other two locations have. They might have a better You-Pick for pumpkins one year than the other ones do. So, that's the most important thing is to get that information out to our customers. Secondly, for example, Blakes Backyard, we have a rule that we do not allow pets. We have a lot of customers that try to bring their pets. So we've decided that with Blakes Backyard, we allow pets because it's a smaller, easier store to navigate, easier location to navigate and it's worked out well for us. We don't like to have to turn people away.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:20:42):
We don't want to have to be the mean one that says, "I'm sorry, you can't come here. You have to put your dog back in the car." People want to bring their pets, so they take them over to Almont. Big Apple, it might be because in the fall they can take a wagon ride to the You-Pick, which the kids like. So we try to keep it diversified, different for each location. Definitely the Cider Mill location does end up being the busiest one, it's a day long experience. You're going to plan your trip to Blakes based on what you want to do. If you want to go to the testing room. If you want to go to the fun lands, there's not a fun land at Blakes Backyard, so you know you wouldn't go there. If you want to just walk around, just depends on what you want to do, but you can do that right through our website and make sure that your customer will know what they want to do.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:21:42):
Yeah. You got to divide and conquer to get everything done. Well, that's great. The weekly updates on the website is a good idea. Does that translate to social media updates as well, or it's mainly on the main Blakes website?
lonnie (second speaker) (00:21:55):
Well, as far as You-Pick it's mainly on the website. If there's special events going on, then it does translate into social media.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:22:05):
Okay. Okay. So I've got only one more question for you, and I want each of you to answer that, take your own time. What is the biggest complaint or the most common complaint that you have as a manager and farm customers?
lonnie (second speaker) (00:22:24):
So from customers in the You-Pick world, it would be that we have a minimum. And the minimum is necessary.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:22:34):
Like Minimum haul to-
lonnie (second speaker) (00:22:35):
We have a $20 minimum per car. You could have 10 people in that car, but we have a $20 minimum. So if you're in the orchards for three, four hours and you come out with nothing, something's going on. But so that would definitely be the hardest thing to communicate. And we do it with signage. We do it with pieces of paper when they come in, anything that we can get that. We don't want people to come up to the window and say, "Well, what do you mean we have to pay $20?" We want that known before they come in, that way if they don't want to come, they don't have to. And that's basically the only bad, really hard thing, it's hard to communicate to some of the customers. But as a complaint that I would have, maybe just the staffing issues that we go through, it's hard to... As is with everybody, it's hard to get help right now. So, I think that's all I've got.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:23:43):
How about you Brent?
brent (fourth speaker) (00:23:46):
So from a new person perspective. From the farm I'll start with my biggest complaint and it's not necessarily a complaint, it's just... I'm used to managing a farm for 60 hours a week, a hundred percent of my time that I'm there. And the biggest different for me was I probably spend about half my time now, either setting up for customers, dealing with customers, organizing my employees that are the ones dealing with customers. And it's finding that appropriate balance in between running a working farm and also dealing with retail side of it as well, it's a big transition compared to what I'm used to, and you just got to balance your time appropriately and understand how to manage your employees to help you meet your goals as well. From a customer standpoint, other than strawberries not being ripe in October. Some of the biggest complaints that we have, I would say would be the amount of people on our farm on the weekend.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:25:02):
Sometimes we are overly packed to the point where our parking is overflowing and it can be very frustrating to customers. And the other big thing that... when it was hot and dry when I first started this dust control on the farm. We have a lot of cars going around the farm and that dust can build up like crazy, and it can coat everything in dust and make the experience a little less enjoyable, so it's something that we have to spend a little bit of money to take care of and whatnot. But the type of complaints that we get aren't necessarily the most obvious things, and you at the end of the day have to listen to your customers and see how they act, and hear their complaints and adjust to it at the end of the day.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:25:51):
Great. Thanks, Brent. How about you, Steve?
steven (third speaker) (00:25:53):
I guess the biggest thing in my world is having employees that are willing to go the extra mile, and knowing the rain days you may not be there but when the sun's shining, we're going and it's getting tough. It's getting tough finding these people. Customers, yeah, I think they hit all the customer complaints. I've heard them all.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:26:24):
Right. Thank you, Steve. Well, I would like to see if you all have any questions and Naim up here is going to have a mic that he can walk out to you, just raise your hand nice and high, and we'll try to get as many as we can in probably the next 15 minutes, probably we have to cut it off around then.
audience member (00:26:43):
Given the amount of people that you have visiting your farm, have you ever given thought to doing an attendance app where they go in and they sign up for an appointment time? If you know you can handle maybe 50 groups or a hundred groups in 10 minute blocks or 50 minute blocks or 15 minute blocks. How do you think that work for the...
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:27:04]
audience member (00:27:03):
So 15 minute blocks. How do you think that would work for the U-pick operation? Mainly.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:27:05):
So we've dabbled in that a little bit for some of our other things, events, some of our festivals we've done that with, and we've done that with our haunt. The only problem we have with that for U-pick is that because if we allow them to drive in, it would be they would have to go and sign, it might work. We should maybe look at it and it's only for the six weeks that it's really bad, it's really, and it's only on the weekends and it's basically from 12 o'clock until close that it gets thick.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:27:45):
And the U-pick is a little bit different than front of house. Because we do let our customers drive into U-pick and it is a 80 acre, orchard slash vegetable area. So there's plenty of space to get spread out in that system. The issue that we typically have with traffic and whatnot is our parking lots and for front of house and they're kind of a separate area almost.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:28:09):
For checking out.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:28:10):
Yeah, separate checkouts too.
audience member (00:28:15):
So my question is about the U-pick, the vegetable portion of it. Do you, when you're checking people out, do you just give them like a half bushel basket to fill and just do it by that? Or do you charge it by each different crop? How do you do that when they are driving in and driving out?
lonnie (second speaker) (00:28:32):
When we start out in the spring, it's by the pound. Okay. And then we go slowly-
audience member (00:28:37):
No matter the crop.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:28:38):
Well, in the spring, it's only either strawberries or it pea pods. So pea pods we do buy the bag or buy a pint and then strawberries, we do by the U-pick tray and we weigh that. We have found that through time, as we get busier and busier and we get more and more crops, the easiest way to do it is in a half bushel bag because we, or do a half bag or a three quarter bag because you cannot weigh out all these different vegetables. It just takes too long.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:29:16):
So I handle a lot of the checkout in the fall or this fall. And we try to get to the point where we are weighing absolutely nothing. And having a thousand cars come through and never have to get the scale out. And we don't really have complaints and it works out. The only issue is we do a mix vegetable bag and we lose a little bit of data in the tracking for individual crops. But we live with having a little less data there.
audience member (00:29:42):
Do you provide those bags?
brent (fourth speaker) (00:29:46):
We sell them for 75 cents.
audience member (00:29:51):
I had the same, similar question about how do you differentiate the vegetable pricing. So it sounds like just to reiterate to make sure I'm understanding, you're doing a mixed vegetable U-pick at a set price per half bushel bag? Is that correct? And how much do you charge?
lonnie (second speaker) (00:30:09):
So we do a vegetable bag, a half bushel vegetable bag and it was $25.95 or $27.95. And then we do apple or pair half bushel bag. And we are pretty straight forward with the customer that they need to keep these two things separate. And that was $29.95.
audience member (00:30:35):
I have a question on scheduling. Does one person schedule for all three locations? Do you trade? It sounds like you trade up employees. And does it feel like you pigeonhole certain people into certain locations because they do such a great job there. That kind of thing.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:30:57):
Well that's not a simple question by any means. So, what do we have about four or 500 employees during the month of October?
lonnie (second speaker) (00:31:09):
Yeah.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:31:10):
And it takes an army to run Blakes during our busy season and we have a lot of different managers that have different tasks at the given locations. So somebody that might spend a lot of their time with the cider mill from, well in every month other than September, October, might spend their month of September and October at Big Apple or Elmont or whatnot, specifically Big Apple is a seasonal location. But we try to give people set tasks whether it's picking apples or spraying crops or whatnot. So that person that is familiar with doing that understands when it's been done what's been completed and it helps reduce confusion among people that might do a little bit of the same task here, a little bit there and so on.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:32:01):
So if I heard that right, you have some people who are skilled at a certain task that you apply to all three farms because they can do it equally in all places?
brent (fourth speaker) (00:32:08):
Yeah.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:32:09):
And just to clarify, let's say our U-pick booths, we have those three locations and our managers at those locations will also, they will do the scheduling and staffing for the booth employees. Brett does it for the Cider Mill, but our Big Apple location, the manager there will schedule the U-pick booth. But anytime that there's any kind of work to be done, spraying, cultivating, whatever that is on the farm team that goes and does that at different locations,
audience member (00:32:47):
Two questions. One, I was curious about your dust control ideas and then the second is any signage or wording about the $20 minimum. We have that issue of we're not a park, we expect you to come and enjoy yourself and do lots of things, but we do expect you to buy something. So anything that you have found a good way to communicate that.
steven (third speaker) (00:33:16):
So when we're unprepared, they would hook up the water trailer and water the roads just to try to hold it back for a while. And then we would call in the chloride truck and have it professionally done.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:33:35):
How do you make sure that customer understand the $20 entry essentially for the U-pick part?
brent (fourth speaker) (00:33:42):
So we have signs leading into the U-pick, and then we also have an information card with our pricing on it that has a set of roles and recommendations that people follow. And it does also say on there. And we definitely have to deal with some customers that do not read the rules when they are leaving and come out with nothing and whatnot and we'll listen to them and we'll have discussions with them and make it a fair assessment of the situation going on. But there's people that come to our orchard to not pick anything, but to do photo shoot and stuff like that. So they're using our location for their photo shoots. So we believe that it's a fare for the $20 there, but there's people that we see routinely come out and spend two or three hours in the orchard and just tour the farm, eating raspberries, eating fruit or whatnot and come out with nothing still. But that's kind of the reason why the rule's in place.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:34:41):
So how have you enforced it?
Speaker 7 (00:34:42):
Signage.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:34:45):
Yeah, just simply signage and I guess I don't understand a better role to inform people other than signage and it's on our website and-
lonnie (second speaker) (00:34:55):
Well, so in the fall, when we're very busy, there are attendance that continually go around the orchard and they'll say, "No picnicking." We have people that come out and want a picnic. And like you said, it is not a park. It is a farm, a working farm. So we can't have them eating out there, picnicking. So that attendant will also say, they'll be asked questions and yes, there is a $20 minimum and we are very honest with people and we want people to understand that before they go in.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:35:28):
Something I observed that might get to your question. When I visited to go to the up pick you're funneled, your vehicle is funneled into more or less a toll booth. So it's not like you can just tear onto the property unnoticed. That's been my observation. I don't know if you've seen something different.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:35:45):
No. And we do have a lot of big, big signs that we have had made and all of them have got the, "no eating." The "make sure you wash your hands", "no eating the fruit and vegetables," "wash your fruits and vegetables," and at the bottom it's, "there is a $20 minimum."
brent (fourth speaker) (00:36:06):
I would say, just in signage alone at our Cider Mill, between variety signs, rules signs, pricing signs, and whatnot, there's no short of 300 signs on the farm at any given time. And that's just for U-pick.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:36:21):
Not just any signs, you guys have well made signs. It's not like spray painted plywood.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:36:26):
Right. Yes. Was there another-
Speaker 10 (00:36:31):
So you-
brent (fourth speaker) (00:36:31):
Okay.
audience member (00:36:31):
Okay, sorry. So you kind of already answered a piece of it in our orchard, we kind of have an issue with people trying to picnic. And then of course, trying to sit out there and eat the produce while they're doing U-pick. So the $20 minimum covers that, kind of helps cut the cost of what you're losing with the guest eating. How often are you placing those signs in the orchard to make sure that people are seeing along with the attendance reminding them that they can't be doing that?
brent (fourth speaker) (00:37:01):
So we have only one standalone sign as you're driving in of $20 minimum, but there's a list of rules and that $20 minimum is part of that list of rules. And then so we have another one of those as you drive in, we have a piece of paper with pricing and rules that we can hand customers as they come in. And there's also a list of rules out in the farm as well so that's four different instances.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:37:26):
There's a sign before they go in.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:37:28):
Yep.
lonnie (second speaker) (00:37:28):
That says "$20 minimum, no picnicking"
brent (fourth speaker) (00:37:31):
Yep. So at least four different instances where they can see the list of rules and $20 minimums and whatnot. And the truth is too, there's just some people that plead ignorance to reading and whatnot, and you just have to walk them through the rules at the end of the day.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:37:53):
I think we might have time for one more for the Blakes crew here.
audience member (00:37:56):
Yeah. So have you ever considered, if you've got your traffic funneled in really well anyways, if they just pay $20 upfront, get some kind of card or coupon or a ticket, and then when they come up to pay that ticket stands as okay, if it's over $20's what they have, then that's their voucher and then they only have to pay the difference. So that way you're ensuring no matter what, even if somebody only picks $5 worth of something and just wanted... A lot of times people just want to take their kids somewhere to run around for the afternoon. That's different. So whether or not they pick anything, they already paid their $20. And then if they did pick and go over that they just pay the difference of it. Is that something you've done in the past or considered doing?
lonnie (second speaker) (00:38:50):
We have not done it in the past and it could be a consideration. We pride ourselves on the fact that we're not one of the orchards that charge you before you go in. We like the fact that they are driving in, they're finding what they like. And then when they come out, they pay for their produce.
brent (fourth speaker) (00:39:12):
And the other part to that is, specific to our location at the Cider Mill, if we have a line of people waiting to pay $20 to come in, that kind of bleeds out into our parking lot, that creates flow issues on busy days. So we try to just get them into the orchard or the U-pick area as quickly as possible. So they're out bleeding out into the parking lot and just absolutely destroying the flow of the rest of the business.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:39:39):
That is a great point. That's a great point. The main location that Brent's talking about has actually a traffic light installed for the farm, for the parking. Yeah. So it goes right out to the road. And so I could see it could back up to the road itself even.
steven (third speaker) (00:39:54):
Now to do that, we have a secondary booth that hands out your bags and your containers, that way they're in the orchard out of the way of flow of traffic.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:40:04):
I see. That's when they get the bags and things.
steven (third speaker) (00:40:05):
Yes.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:40:06):
I see, okay. The question was do you have an orchard scout?
brent (fourth speaker) (00:40:14):
We have an orchard scout to cover problems.
audience member (00:40:18):
Even trees can get in the way. Is there a central area for them to park?
ben (first and main speaker) (00:40:24):
The question is, is there a central area for parking?
brent (fourth speaker) (00:40:27):
We try to make parking areas all over the farm because we have multiple crops in various areas that if people aren't going to be picking peaches even remotely close to picking sunflowers or peppers or anything like that. And we have to give... People don't like to walk long distances at the end of the day. I've seen people get in their car and drive a hundred yards to go pick green beans compared to peppers. So we try to make parking options available all over the farm. And sure, we lose a little bit of tillable acreage by doing that, but I think it's worthwhile and it keeps people a little bit better spaced out in less traffic.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:41:07):
Okay. Well, Lonnie, Brent, Steven, thank you so much for coming here on behalf of Blake's and entertaining us on this subject and answering questions from the audience. Let's thank them. Let's give them a hand.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:41:25):
What I'd like to do now is actually play a little bit of musical chairs and have you three come down to this table and have Terry come up. And Bruce I'd really, I'd love for you to come up too. Watch out for the cables. Okay. Thanks Rachel. So we have some special guests here today. This is Terry and Bruce Hooper from Traverse City and they have been running a farm up there called Hooper's Farm Gardens for quite some time. And what they, well, I guess I'll let you tell me more about that. Tell me about Hooper's Farm Gardens. How did it start and where are you at now?
terry (fifth speaker) (00:42:06):
We are-
ben (first and main speaker) (00:42:08):
Can you put, can you really get that up close?
terry (fifth speaker) (00:42:10):
Yeah, absolutely. So I moved back here from Arizona about 30 years ago, we got married. His parents had a third generation farm and grew tons of flowers, and at the time I just wanted to be a stay at home mom when we got married. So eventually I started going down to the farm market. We were one of the third, there were only three of us down on there at the time. And with my art degree, it became increasingly clear that I really just needed to do wedding flowers. And being off the beaten path in Traverse City, we're about halfway out on the Old Mission Peninsula. So not a big drive, 20, 25 minutes at the most, but we're not on a main road. So we needed to do one of those value added things. The cherries and apples were going to the wayside with the trees being old and the equipment being old.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:43:01):
So we decided to downsize considerably from how many, 180 acres down to about acre and a half at this point. So really small, especially compared to all you guys, I was on your website which is fabulous. And yeah, so big, big change. And we totally had to get out of the farm market. And we got into the house, the home next door, which was as big a garden as his parents was almost in perennials. So studying flowers and his parents are master gardeners. We became master gardeners and decided we really wanted to focus on the local flowers, which if you're going to do a hundred weddings a season, which we do, that's four to eight a weekend all summer long because you only have six months. So it's a lot of work and I work, we work seven days a week.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:43:59):
He takes care of everything and grows it. I sell it and I'm pretty sure the hands on part is me ordering the seeds and maybe getting a few of them into the ground. But otherwise I'm in the studio doing a lot of paperwork, which is my big complaint about, when you get yourself so busy that you're not doing the parts you love and it becomes a business, you have to be very careful with that. And I'm starting to back off. In fact, there is a few flyers out there because we are trying to retire right now and selling our farm to move out to Bellaire to be with our grandkids. So continuing to take weddings at this point, but if you're going to have the U-pick, one, getting your name out there is really important. And that volunteer operation or volunteer opportunities that you have.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:44:54):
And in Traverse City, everybody throws fundraisers for everybody all the time. So you pick the ones you can and if you've got product and we've got flowers, and I ended up with a huge Amish shed as a prop station so we could give all the props, the votifs and lighting and arbors and everything. So all these out of town brides, because it is a destination wedding place. There's probably 10, 15 florists in Traverse City. I turn weddings away. We've never advertised. We don't need to. I wouldn't say that's optimal for every location, but Bruce, tell a little bit about yourself.
bruce (sixth speaker) (00:45:36):
Okay. Like we've mentioned, I've got a background in horticulture. I've used county extension forever since the classes, every class they have I have followed that and keep up with county extension and latest things that are happening in the farming. And that's what I did for the 30 years while we farmed. And so I have the background in horticulture that I needed when I started concentrating just on flowers. And I found, we went through the integrated pest management where you study, monitor your garden, keeping up track of what's out there. And then you only have to spray to target certain things. And that keeps your cost down because spray is not cheap. And also people don't like the sound of pesticides and they don't want, are the pesticides on your flowers? Well only occasionally. So we try to keep that under control.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:46:31):
So on the whole, a smaller farm, smaller operation, fewer managers. And if I heard that right, your business is focused on flowers for events, weddings being a big one, and, correct me if I'm wrong, a smaller component that is you cut or U-pick, they can come to the property and do the cutting?
terry (fifth speaker) (00:46:55):
Yeah. So we have lots of people, it's on the bicycle path for Traverse City. And so the advertising, we just didn't do it because we were so busy with wedding flowers and all the local people were supporting us and getting out there and donating your time and your product got us a lot of business, but COVID was actually a real blessing to us because while we lost and postponed and downsized our weddings, so many people wanted to be outside with something to do. We were just inundated with new clients or new customers, and now they're still coming. We did funerals, which we never do. We did deliveries to Munson Hospital because no one could get product because of the floods and the hurricanes in all the places where they get their flowers. And we get our flowers there as well. But we still do, I would say 80% of our weddings are what we grow because we have enough perennials and annuals that we have something new every week constantly coming. We never have a dead season.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:48:04):
So funerals are something you never do.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:48:06):
Did.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:48:07):
There are some flowers at funerals. I wouldn't think as much as weddings. It depends, I suppose. Is that a conscious decision to not do funerals or is that just doesn't there haven't been as many asks?
terry (fifth speaker) (00:48:18):
There hasn't been as many asks because we're a U-pick flower business and known for our weddings and there are cards up there, you can look on our website. And like I said, we do 80 to a hundred weddings a weekend for, I mean, or a year, a weekend... Feels like that sometimes. But yeah, I was really glad when October hit and October's one of our busiest months and we have a wedding as soon as we get back this weekend, we have another wedding. And what was the question?
ben (first and main speaker) (00:48:52):
It was just if you made a choice to not do funerals or if they just weren't an opportunity?
terry (fifth speaker) (00:48:57):
Being a U-pick flower farm, I think a lot of people just never thought of us for that, but they do now.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:49:02):
Yeah.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:49:03):
But we're too busy.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:49:03):
Okay. So flowers are your main bread and butter. Can you tell me a little bit about how you've made your decisions on the flowers you grow and then also, maybe for the audience, another aspect of flower production that doesn't come immediately to mind are the greens. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
terry (fifth speaker) (00:49:23):
Yeah. And very important. And I know, I haven't seen them yet, but they're supposed to be here is Johnny's Seed and that too. Johnny's Seed, I was having a hard time finding a lot of seeds that are flowers that I get from the wholesaler that I really depend on, ranunculus and lisianthus and things that don't grow particularly well or slow or you only can plant them once or they get one bloom and they're done and you have to have a huge variety of perennials and annuals. And we grow a lot of herbs because we use them as greens. So yeah, you maybe treat them a little bit differently, but we completely got out of vegetable gardening because we were doing so many herbs. But so when we, I finally opened a Johnny's Seed catalog because we get so many seed catalogs and I started looking and, by golly they had all of those.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:50:21):
Now some of them are pretty hard to grow, but this is, and anybody, you guys can take a picture of this if you want, or I can email it to you, but this is a list of what we grow for our annuals. And we would get, I would say a hundred percent of them from Johnny's Seed or lots of seed catalogs. They just seem to have more of those unusual things. The madam butterfly snap dragons, and they have really good instructions of, if you have to plant them twice, if you should plant them inside or outside, what the temperatures are.
bruce (sixth speaker) (00:50:58):
When to start them.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:50:59):
Yeah. They have really, really good, great information. And we have small greenhouse and we do that. But yeah. So that's how we decide what we want is... Pinterest, everybody, all the brides want Pinterest. And we always tell them, we're not going to copy anything. Everything we do is one of a kind, any pictures you send me or I follow are only inspiration.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:51:23):
Okay.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:51:23):
And we don't have any unhappy brides. So if you can grow eucalyptus, getting back to your green point, you can grow eucalyptus but as much as we have to use, there would be no way that we could grow enough eucalyptus. It grows far too slow. So plant boxwood. Boxwood is that bulky, grows like crazy. I mean just a wonderful green to plant. Lilac greens hold up very well. Peony greens after they cut grow really well. What other ones?
audience member (00:51:54):
Do you have any fern?
terry (fifth speaker) (00:51:57):
Yeah. Ferns, Michigan ferns don't hold up particularly well. They just, they poop out, and I think on this handout, which isn't colorful, back there, I made you a list of things that we grow and when they're in bloom and you guys are welcome to take that. And there should be quite a few greens on there. But the biggest thing to do is take any greenery you see out and cut it and see if it holds up, just put it in water. Don't put it in the cooler. Just put it in a little water, hydrangea greens hold up, hosta greens hold up.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:52:35):
What? What's that one that-
bruce (sixth speaker) (00:52:37):
Euonymus.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:52:38):
Oh yeah, euonymus, I mean, there's a ton of greens that you can grow in Michigan that hold up really well. Curly willow grows a little bit here. Harry's walking stick. We have a lot of trees that we use greens for. Hops. And before hops were popular in Michigan, we started growing hops just for boutonniere. So yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:52:59):
Interesting. The cones or the leaves?
terry (fifth speaker) (00:53:01):
The cones. Yep. And the leaves don't hold up real well. People always want garland. There's not that many greens that you can, you can't do grape vine. You can do the vine, but the grape leaves just poop out. They don't hold up. So, when you're doing flower arrangements, we do a U-pick, but we also have a lot of people call and say, "Hey, I'm going to stop by, can you just put a bouquet out for me?"
terry (fifth speaker) (00:53:26):
And it's hard to keep your bouquets outside because the weather is not permittive. And we have a small cooler, we tried plugging that in and you just don't know. So it's pretty much, call us. We'll get it together for you or come by. I usually have enough stuff cut in the cooler from the morning. We'll go out and harvest a hundred peonies every morning to put into the cooler so we can have them. They bloom the second week of June at our place. And then we can keep them a month and a half usually in the cooler. So at that marshmallow state. So that's helpful.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:53:57):
So you had mentioned how some of your decisions on what to grow come from looking at the...
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:54:04]
ben (first and main speaker) (00:54:03):
... your decisions on what to grow come from looking at the same Pinterest pages that some of your clients may be looking at, which I think is very clever.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:54:08):
Yes.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:54:09):
So then you buy seed based on, then, what you think people might want. Does it ever work out that you get orders far enough in advance that you buy specifically for them?
terry (fifth speaker) (00:54:21):
Oh, absolutely.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:54:21):
Okay.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:54:22):
Because I started talking to 2022 brides last year.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:54:27):
Okay.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:54:27):
Everybody books a year ahead. It's a girl that's not doing good planning that waits for two months before their wedding. So yeah, we grow specifically for people and then we just plant pretty much anything that will grow in Michigan, we've got it. I mean, you got to plan it for this kind of wedding and we don't have to have a ton because we have that wholesaler, so we're in a good position for that. If it was just our clients coming in, it's an acre garden, they can find something.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:54:54):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Of all the things you've tried over the years, or maybe more recently, if that had helps, what's really been a hit and what has just totally flopped?
terry (fifth speaker) (00:55:06):
Well ...
ben (first and main speaker) (00:55:07):
I think you gave up on Cosmos also. You gave up on Cosmos too.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:55:12):
We did, mostly, but we still had to have some white ones, so I was really glad that we had a small spot. The Amaranthus is beautiful, even though it's huge. People love it. And broomstick, everybody loves the broomstick. Of course, snapdragons are beautiful, but the Madame Butterfly snapdragons are far more famous. Lisianthus, an forget it. I just started buying, what do you? Plugs. Are these plugs, right? Yeah. Plugs of Lizzy. And you got to be careful with some of the species that you can find are in face like the baby's breath, you don't want to get that kind of thing. We've gotten rid of rue because people were getting burnt on it. Some people are allergic to it.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:56:01):
Oh, it's actually a skin reaction.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:56:03):
Yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:56:03):
Oh.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:56:04):
Not pittosporum, but the other, oh, snow-on-the-mountain, the big, tall, snow-on-the-mountain that you can grow, beautiful, beautiful. Almost looks like a flower. Green and white, grows super easy, reseeds itself like crazy, but it also can cause a rash, so you really have to warn people about that.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:56:23):
Hm. Why have both of you given up on cosmos for the most part? What's the deal with cosmos?
terry (fifth speaker) (00:56:29):
It doesn't hold up very well.
bruce (sixth speaker) (00:56:31):
Not really a cut flower. You cut it would droop right then and ...
ben (first and main speaker) (00:56:35):
Hey Bruce, you want to hold that other mic when you're talking.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:56:38):
I haven't given up on it.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:56:41):
You haven't given up. Okay.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:56:44):
No, but we're ordering a lot of anemones and only the perennial anemones grow here and they have yellow centers and everybody wants the blue centers, so, yeah. But there's really tons of fun. You pick stuff. There's a little annual forget-me-not that's ... There's hardly any blue flowers, so get that in because it's this big blue bushy thing and it regrows, and there's just so many cool things that, from ordering from the wholesaler and looking at Pinterest or all the flower magazines that you go, "Oh, why don't I try that?" So it's just after 30 years of doing this that it's great. And Bells of Ireland, long growing season.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:57:23):
I love that one.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:57:23):
Yeah, it smells good. And don't tell, you don't pick the leaves off like you see them everywhere. You don't need to do that because the leaves are beautiful, they smell, it makes it so much fuller, stock is beautiful. It's a lot harder to grow because you have to pick out certain ones that after they grow so much, you look for ones that have two leaves and you have to pick those out, but if you read the Johnny's Seeds suggestions, and I'm sure all the other magazines have that too, but just read their instructions and follow and really, they're pretty hard to kill, any of them.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:57:56):
The number of individual crops that we've already named just in this interview is dizzying.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:58:01):
Oh, yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:58:06):
This is for you, Bruce, I want to make sure you got the mic on. Is it on?
bruce (sixth speaker) (00:58:10):
Turn it on.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:58:11):
Can you just tap it and see?
bruce (sixth speaker) (00:58:13):
Nope, nope.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:58:13):
Nope. We got it.
audience member questions throughout (00:58:14):
Use that one.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:58:14):
Yeah, why don't you use that? There's a lot of different things out there and what is unique, I think it's not just multiple varieties. When it comes to flowers, well, it's not exactly like herbs, but you get distinctly different species that come from distinctly different plant families and when it comes to crop management, that's kind of crazy to me. When you grow tomatoes and peppers and eggplants, a lot of the same pests occur, a lot of the same pesticide labels match. You can use the same stuff on peppers as you use on eggplant and vice versa. But when you have several species of flowers coming from so many different plant families, and I think mainly, as it comes to herbicides, there's almost nothing you can do in any blanket way, correct?
bruce (sixth speaker) (00:58:57):
Right. Herbicides particularly are difficult because you have a broad spectrum. If you're not careful, then, there goes your annual planning. I've relied on Roundup for the years.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:59:14):
Okay.
bruce (sixth speaker) (00:59:15):
And I had some, after I quit farming, I had a stock of it, so glyphosate, I've been using that and I'm careful with that. I can direct it to the ground and the rows, but one thing I found out also, too, as you got the flowers and the vegetables, I gave up on vegetables because it's just too different, than the flowers. Where a lot of flowers have the same pests, you have the aphids, you have the thrips, you have the Japanese beetles and you can attack those with the same spectrum of chemicals.
ben (first and main speaker) (00:59:44):
Oh, I see. Okay.
bruce (sixth speaker) (00:59:47):
Yeah.
terry (fifth speaker) (00:59:47):
And then the herbicides. Did you talk about that?
ben (first and main speaker) (00:59:50):
Yes. Yeah. So with Roundup, you use that as like a burn down ahead of the annual plantings and then for between row, very tight spot treatments, is that what I'm hearing?
bruce (sixth speaker) (00:59:57):
Yes. And I use them in the perennials because the beds are spaced better, so it's easy to get around in without drifting onto the plants. And I don't mulch very often because I encourage volunteers, 50% of our return crops are seeds that we've reseeded, volunteers, I call them.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:00:19):
Is that right?
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:00:20):
Yes.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:00:20):
So in the flower industry, there's not a lot of hybrids, then, that would make that next crop a little different than what you started with?
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:00:27):
Some are, yes. You can't count on the same color of the seeds that came out of, but you get a plant.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:00:34):
Yeah. We don't care. We're artists.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:00:38):
Yeah. Then, you can take the seedling and move it to where you want it and move it around and.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:00:45):
Or not.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:00:45):
Or not.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:00:46):
And let a 10 foot sunflower grow in the middle of nowhere.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:00:49):
Yeah. Or let the garden take care of itself.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:00:51):
Yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:00:52):
So what would you say your biggest pest is, then? Is it a generalist pest that gets every wear or is there just one crop that just gets this one thing that's really bad every year?
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:01:04):
We have the aphids and the thrips. Those are hard to control. The thrip is particularly because it burrows and gets in there, it's almost microscopic. You have to use a systemic insecticide for that, which you can pick up at a hardware store or the nurseries sell all these things now, broad spectrum and stuff. You have beetles where the Japanese beetles that come in, but there's a biological by Captain Jack's that attacks it and I can control it very easily with that. Before it gets too infested, you got to get in there quick and keep an eye on it. If you start seeing a beetle, you spray everything.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:01:37):
Yeah, the Japanese beetle product you're talking about, I think that's called Beauvaria bassiana. I was wrong, it's called spinosad.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:01:44):
Yes.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:01:44):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:01:45):
They found it in Jamaica.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:01:46):
Yeah. Do you use that directly on the beetles or do you apply it to like the lawns and landscapes around? Because I think that's how ...
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:01:52):
We apply it directly to the plant.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:01:53):
Is that right? Okay.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:01:56):
Yeah. And then, they start to eat it and then they're the bacteria attacks them that way.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:02:00):
Okay. Anything else you'd like to add about the plant management?
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:02:05):
Not off the top of my head.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:02:07):
Do you do the planting as well or more on the chemical side?
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:02:09):
I do the planting in the annual garden every year, the seeds.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:02:13):
Yeah, I do have another question for you, then. This resource that Terry put other in the back there has a list of plants on every row and then the bloom times going across.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:02:28):
Yes.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:02:28):
Those bloom times, if this was a perennial that came up every year and just followed its own cycle, the bloom time would be based on, mostly, the weather.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:02:39):
Degree days.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:02:40):
And degree days. And it still is that way for annuals, but planting time is also super important. How do you figure out your planting times for all these diversities of bloom windows that you're trying to hit?
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:02:52):
Well, and that's one thing, since we're not using vegetables, we don't have to worry about putting the peas in early and the lettuce. We just concentrate on one thing. We start seeds early. We have seedlings already in a greenhouse and we just wait until end of May or the last full moon in May and usually, that's safe.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:03:14):
And we're on the peninsula, so we're a little protected so of course, it's going to vary a little bit.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:03:19):
Okay. So you basically started everything by seed in a greenhouse and you put everything out of transplants almost on the same weekend.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:03:25):
June 1st likely, yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:03:27):
Wow. And then, that's got you set for the whole season. You don't do any replants throughout the season or multiple plantings?
terry (fifth speaker) (01:03:33):
There's a lot of them that you can, but we're so busy we can't, but look on that little thing at the bottom of those seed packets, it tells, you could reseed this, you could reseed this, but we have a long enough summer, a lot of it just reseeds itself.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:03:47):
And we do Gladiolus too. So we put those in every week for a while.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:03:51):
Yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:03:53):
Okay. Okay. I have a question more on the difference between you and Blake's in size and what that means. You have a smaller operation. How many people do you hire?
terry (fifth speaker) (01:04:05):
We used to have 10 and then when COVID hit, we went down to three plus myself and now, I've structured it, because I want to retire, I've structured it so we can do about three to four weddings a weekend with the four of us. I got rid of the prop business, we're just doing flowers and we have a couple teams that go out, do setups and you can structure it any way you want, honestly. And where we live, there's enough business. We don't advertise, we're just lucky.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:04:37):
What you said about advertising and how you don't do it, and you said this twice before about volunteering.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:04:41):
Yes.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:04:42):
You told me about this on the phone before we started this, I know you really want to talk about it. And I tried to put a name to it that I thought was clever, philanthropic equity. You've earned philanthropic equity with your community. Tell me more about that and how you feel like that it has benefited you and how people can engage in it themselves.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:05:02):
Well, when we started out, our kids were in high school and there were a lot of women who came from Chicago and all these places and they saw the need in Traverse City to do fundraising for child and family service, March of Dimes, all kinds of things. And every community has different things that they do, but if you're going to do a flower business or a vegetable business or any kind of farm market, if you can get involved in those, even if you can't do what you do, get involved with those because if you can show off a little bit and get your name out there, honestly, it's just the best thing. And that they think of your name before they think of anybody else if they said, oh yeah, Terry Hooper helps, she was pretty whatever, she was pretty artistic. She showed up on time. They see those things about you and they remember you, so even if you can't go and sell your beans, you get your name out there and that's just a ton of good will to get your name out there. Doing good things for your community.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:06:07):
I like that.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:06:08):
Yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:06:09):
I like that. I want to ask you both the same question that I finished with Blake's with and then move it out to the audience. And I'd like both of you to answer these two questions. What is your most common complaint as managers and what is your most common complaint from customers?
terry (fifth speaker) (01:06:25):
I think from customers, it's probably signage because like you said, we can have a ton of signs, they're never the right signs. I think where we park is very reasonable. No one parks that way, honest to goodness, every 200 people that come in there, one person will park in the right place. And pricing, luckily we just go out there, if we see somebody that we think is new, we go out and introduce ourselves, otherwise, we don't do anything. They come over, they park, they get their clippers, they kind of look at the sign. It's kind of vague pricing, quarter to a dollar and usually, people will throw in more money than less because they love it. If they followed our price line, we wouldn't make as much money, quite frankly. They just don't want to sit and count stems in a bucket, they're throwing 20 bucks and I know it's $5 worth, but yeah, it's terrible.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:07:18):
And it's just really hard. And now, wholesale pricing has tripled in one year, so I feel like we should raise it, but it hasn't really tripled for us. Well, I guess it really has. Maybe not triple, but it has gone up. We probably could do better on pricing and signage. They don't complain to us, though, because they're just so stinking happy to be there. If you're at a flower farm, like you said, it's beautiful. They don't care if they're not picking it or not. It just adds so much. And they come and they take pictures and we get graduation pictures and pictures for magazines and we are-
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:07:53):
Bridals.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:07:54):
Oh, the bridals. And we've got this famous tree limb that everybody wants to sit on and they just wander around and we have an Australian shepherd and she just bounces around, makes everybody throw her the ball and she's entertainment. And I think my biggest complaint-
ben (first and main speaker) (01:08:07):
I'm losing track of who's complaining. Is anybody complaining?
terry (fifth speaker) (01:08:10):
Nobody's complaining.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:08:11):
Okay. Well, that's ... All right.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:08:12):
I'm complaining because I got to do too much book work. I don't get to do the fun stuff anymore, so I'm trying to get my assistant to do it.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:08:20):
Sometimes it's the mother that's not happy.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:08:23):
Yeah. Do you have complaints?
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:08:25):
I don't deal with the people very often. If I'm out in the garden, I'll show them around. They don't know how to cut flowers for one thing.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:08:32):
Right.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:08:32):
They cut too long or too short, but by then, that's nothing I'm going to do about it.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:08:39):
Right.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:08:41):
They're happy. They like to do that. If they're happy, then that's fine, I'm happy. If they go along and walk around the yard, we have paths so that they stay out of the beds that they, just the cut.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:08:52):
You can make a lot of money on an acre and a half and not really working that hard and it's fun work, so we're happy where we are.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:09:02):
Yeah.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:09:02):
I mean, if I was 20, 30 years younger, I would like to do that, but nah.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:09:08):
We were farming then, too.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:09:10):
Yeah. We were farming.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:09:11):
Well, Naim, you want to come up and grab this mic from Terry and they can share the one on the stand and we can get questions from the folks?
terry (fifth speaker) (01:09:18):
Oh, yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:09:18):
Raise your hand nice and big so Naim can find you.
audience member (01:09:21):
Could you elaborate a little bit more on the you pick process as far as from the customer side, when they pull in your driveway of what have happens next?
terry (fifth speaker) (01:09:33):
They get out of the car, there's a-
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:09:36):
A garden shed.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:09:36):
There's a garden shed right there and my studio is kind of downhill so we can see them. So if we don't know, them, we'll go out and say, "Hey, we're down here if you need us. Bathroom's down here." And they just look at the pricing, there's clippers, a basket. They go down to the perennials, out to the annuals, they cut whatever they want, nothing's off limits. They come in. Sometimes, they ask me for pricing and I say, "Just give us what you want." Or it's a quarter of stem and big flowers are a dollar. Usually, they just throw in 20 bucks and they never have $20 worth of flowers. I mean, hardly. And if it's a wedding, they'll come on me ahead of time and say, "Hey, can we come and cut enough flowers to pick?" We've had three you pick weddings in there cutting for huge weddings in one day and you wouldn't even know that it was so there's always enough stuff between the perennials and the annuals.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:10:26):
Yeah. And we leave a change box in the garden shed, $20 change usually. And then, I check it throughout the day and we've never lost any money out of it. We've never had over the years.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:10:40):
That's nice. Perks of being on a peninsula.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:10:42):
We leave it out there all night long.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:10:43):
We have a credit app, so if they need to pay with credit, they can do the app.
audience member questions throughout (01:10:48):
Do they pay with the credit app through a QR code?
terry (fifth speaker) (01:10:52):
No, I just send them an email.
audience member (01:10:53):
Okay. I had a different question.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:10:55):
Okay.
audience member (01:10:56):
Now, all these varieties require different spacing. How do you handle that when you're planting? Do you use a wheel planter? Do you hand plant? How does that work?
terry (fifth speaker) (01:11:05):
We had a wheel planter. It didn't ...
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:11:09):
I didn't like it.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:11:09):
Yeah. He didn't like, it was too much work.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:11:12):
I don't think we have the volume, really, to justify it.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:11:13):
Yeah.
audience member (01:11:14):
So how are you planting your annuals, then? By hand?
terry (fifth speaker) (01:11:18):
Yes.
audience member (01:11:18):
Okay.
audience member (01:11:21):
[inaudible 01:11:21].
terry (fifth speaker) (01:11:21):
No. Shuffle hoe.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:11:22):
12 by 12.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:11:24):
12 by 12 spots, usually. And then, we can just do each spot as far as they, and we find that usually, we can plant them much closer than it says. As long as people have enough room to walk through the rows, that's pretty much what we care about. Yeah.
audience member (01:11:41):
Do you have any issue with people's safety and the cutting tools?
terry (fifth speaker) (01:11:46):
No, they're not that sharp. No. Kidding. He sharpens them.
audience member (01:11:51):
Okay.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:11:52):
No. Nobody's ever, ever ...
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:11:55):
No.
audience member (01:11:56):
Do you let kids handle them or do you ...
terry (fifth speaker) (01:11:59):
We have kids scissors out there for them.
audience member (01:12:01):
Okay.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:12:02):
And the kids are always with their parents.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:12:03):
Yeah.
audience member (01:12:03):
Okay.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:12:03):
They're supervised.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:12:06):
It's never been an issue, but get insurance if you're going to do that kind of thing. It's not that you get insurance, but you make sure you tell your insurance company that you are doing this and that you're letting people on your property because yeah, you just want to let them know.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:12:19):
So homeowners will cover most of these things.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:12:21):
Yeah. Except for yourself, it doesn't cover that.
audience member (01:12:25):
In your you pick, do you send home the flowers in a sleeve or just in their hand in a bundle or just ...
terry (fifth speaker) (01:12:30):
Whatever they want. I have a friend that's a fanatic shopper, so she'll go to the sales and pick me up vases, so I leave the stickers on them so if they want to vase, it's like a old golf shed, it's got a bunch of vases in it. If they want a vase, they take it, the water source is there. We give them the little packets of FloraLife. We did do sleeves, but generally, people just take them up. I have a roll of paper and they tear it off and they take it home in paper. It's mostly locals.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:13:03):
Okay. I think we got time for one more.
audience member (01:13:05):
You plant at the end of May and then you're able to start picking in June?
terry (fifth speaker) (01:13:10):
Because of the annuals and perennials, mostly perennials are going to be in June.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:13:15):
Yeah. We have the perennials growing like crazy in June and we have peonies, roses, lilacs, daffodils and things. And then, the annuals come on late August and September and October. And by then, the perennials are done.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:13:30):
Until another couple months. Then, you have other perennials, but yeah. Roses are all the time. And then, gaillardia, a lot of the things that you were talking about that. Yeah, so you have those.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:13:45):
Okay, well.
terry (fifth speaker) (01:13:46):
What?
audience member (01:13:47):
Sunflowers?
terry (fifth speaker) (01:13:48):
Oh, yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:13:50):
Sunflowers.
bruce (sixth speaker) (01:13:50):
Yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:13:52):
Okay. So they do sunflowers too. Great. Terry, Bruce, I really appreciate you coming today. Happy to be here. Let's give them my hand. I'm running out of room at the lower table there, but I'd like you to be present for any other questions if we get them for the whole group, but now, we have another guest, special guest coming in from around the Jackson area. And this is going to be a little different. This is going to be a little different from the last two. I'd like to introduce to Rachel Mifsud and she works for a company that she's founded called Will Forage For Food. Do you want to give an outline on what that's all about?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:14:36):
Yeah, I do. I teach people how to forage, basically. And that's the short version.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:14:42):
That's the short version.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:14:43):
That's the short version. I teach people how to forage. And I think probably how I got here today is that I do that on several CSA and you pick farms. They have classes that I run. I think that might be where you ...
ben (first and main speaker) (01:14:58):
So your business model is education, primarily.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:15:00):
Yes.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:15:00):
Not in the sale of picked food from-
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:15:02):
No, actually, I have a strict policy against selling. I don't have anything against foragers who do sell, but I feel like it creates a conflict of interest to talk to people and teach them about sustainability and ethical harvest and then turn around and harvest 500 pounds of ramps to sell. It's not like that couldn't be done ethical, but I feel like it creates the illusion of a conflict of interest, so I just don't sell anything.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:15:33):
Okay.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:15:34):
It's all education.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:15:35):
Alrighty. So what is your primary customer base to these educational outputs?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:15:39):
It's everybody It's probably the only place in the world where you can put a barefoot hippie and a full fledged prepper in the same place and they talk to each other because they both don't like the government and they both want to be self-sufficient.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:15:58):
Yeah. I got to go to one of your classes and after I invited you, I was like, "I should probably go see one of these classes." So I went to one, it was on a public land in Brighton and that was just one class of several that you offer within a given year. Can you tell me more about what locations that you do this on? How do you choose them? Public, private, your own property? How do you differentiate and what's offered?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:16:27):
Okay. Yeah, I do a lot of stuff on public State of Michigan land. I had to get a blanket permit that allows me to use the land for commercial purposes. But also, like I said, initially I do a lot of stuff on people's farms, people who have CSAs and you picks and want to draw business to the farm can have, on a Wednesday when it might be a slow day, well, let's have a 6:00 o'clock class on a Wednesday and tell people how to use the herbs that are growing on the farm as well as all of these weeds that are growing around here as well. That brings people out to the farms and gets them buying the produce as well.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:17:09):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And you have camps, I take it.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:17:14):
I do. Yeah, I run camps sometimes. And again, I do sometimes do those on the farms as just a way to bring publicity to the farm. Sometimes, I do them on my, I have a 10 acre partial and sometimes I do them on state land. It just depends on the focus of the camp.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:17:27):
Okay. Those are usually overnight?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:17:29):
Weekend.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:17:30):
Weekend.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:17:30):
Yeah, usually Thursday or Friday through Sunday.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:17:33):
And the participants stay overnight?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:17:34):
Yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:17:35):
Okay.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:17:35):
Yeah. They camp.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:17:37):
That is a topic of interest alone within some of these groups as how you may be able to have people camp on your property, which is adjacent to other pieces of what they're trying to do. Do you have any lessons learned there from having people camping out at your place?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:17:53):
Yeah, have them sign a waiver? Definitely have them sign a waiver.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:17:57):
Sign a waiver?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:17:57):
Yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:17:58):
Okay. A fella at the round table last night mentioned a website called Hipcamp. That seemed like a way to, I don't know, make it easy. Have you heard of that?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:18:07):
No, I haven't. And I don't want to make it sound scary. I've never actually needed that waiver for anything, but it makes them read the rules.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:18:15):
Uh-huh (affirmative). Yeah.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:18:16):
If you have them sign a waiver, they have to read it before they sign it. Or at least they can't claim that they didn't read it because they signed it.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:18:23):
Right.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:18:24):
Then, when they do something they weren't supposed to do, you can say, "Well, you sign this thing."
ben (first and main speaker) (01:18:28):
Yeah. Yeah. That's a good way to protect yourself. I asked this question to the other guests in different ways, but I want to try to ask you this question and I'm interested in your answer. They grow 20 different crops. The Hoopers grow, I didn't ask you how many, but I got dizzy by the names you spit out. How many things do you forage in a year? Wow. Can you put a number to that?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:18:55):
No.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:18:58):
There's so many.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:18:58):
Yeah. There's so many. I fill a six cubic foot freezer every year with produce that I then take to an event where we have about 250 people and feed them all weekend. And that's just to do it for that one event. That's not what I could get. I would say, I don't know, a thousand different species?
ben (first and main speaker) (01:19:30):
A thousand different species.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:19:30):
Yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:19:31):
And not just leaves, either. You're working with ...
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:19:33):
Roots, bark, flowers, fruits, nuts, mushrooms.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:19:39):
Yeah. When do you start with this type of thing? When do you start foraging and does it slow down? Is there a peak?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:19:48):
You don't really start or stop? It's a year round thing. But in my mind, the foraging year starts when the maple sap starts.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:19:55):
Okay.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:19:57):
I don't know if it's like that for other foragers, but in my mind, that's when the year starts is when the maple sap, because that's when spring starts. Then, you start getting, your sap season, and then you start getting some little shoots start coming up and little sprouts and things like that that you can start foraging, usually, even before the sap is done running. And then, it slows down, just like a farm, at the end of October into the early part of November. And it's slow over the winter, but there's still stuff. There's things that stay green under the snow. There's certainly root crops that-
ben (first and main speaker) (01:20:33):
Root crops and things.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:20:33):
Well, although, to be honest, trying to forge for roots in the middle of January, you need a pick axe. I mean it's, it's not something you really want to do. I mean, if you're in a survival situation, you can do it, but it's not recommended.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:20:47):
Yeah. Maybe you should bulk up before that point.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:20:49):
Exactly. Exactly.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:20:51):
Oh. What can be legally harvested? If we want to think about these as, I don't know, wildlife, there's permits for something like a deer. How about with our plants?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:21:01):
Yeah. What's no permits for plants. You just do it.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:21:03):
Okay. You just-
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:21:04]
ben (first and main speaker) (01:21:03):
... how about with our plants? What can you-
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:21:03):
There's no permits for plants. You just do it.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:21:03):
... You just do it?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:21:04):
Yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:21:04):
Does it matter the type of land, the owner, state or federal, natural forest?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:21:10):
I think on federal land, you can do fruits, nuts and mushrooms. On state land you can do fruits, nuts and mushrooms and a few flowers. You can't can't do anything that's going to quote, damage a plant, but nowhere in the law, does it define what damage is?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:21:27):
Which is a big loophole, because if you think about something like a nettle, you cut the top off of it to harvest it. It then flowers seven flowers instead of one. Did I damage it, or did I help it?
ben (first and main speaker) (01:21:40):
That's a great question.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:21:43):
I'd say I helped it and I'll take that to court. That's the other thing though, is that the penalty for doing something wrong is three times the value. What is three times the value of a nettle?
ben (first and main speaker) (01:21:56):
Is it the one thing, or the seven things that came from it?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:21:59):
Exactly.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:22:01):
When you have these classes, you have them set up periodically throughout the summer. Within that range of classes, you've got a few every month. Is there a hot time for a particular item that people are thinking I think they're around now. I was told this is the time for this thing and I want to go to a class now?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:22:18):
April and May.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:22:18):
April and May.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:22:19):
April I make probably a third of my money for the year in April and May, because everybody wants to get out. Also you do anything with the word mushroom in it in April and May and everybody is there. Because everybody wants the morels.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:22:32):
I don't even do anything with them. I run a mushroom camp in May on Memorial weekend. I put in gigantic letters that there is no guarantee we are going to find Morales and it sells out in three weeks every year, because they want to find the morels.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:22:48):
I know a lot of farmers had a wet fall and it was with a hanging head in many cases. However, when I went on your foraging trip, we saw several mushrooms. I remember you remarked, there were mushrooms this year that I've never seen before, because it was just an amazing mushroom fall.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:23:10):
It was insane this fall for mushrooms. My parents started taking me foraging when I was a few months old, so I've been looking for mushrooms my whole life. There was a whole bunch of stuff out there, that I have no idea what it was this year.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:23:27):
Don't eat it, don't eat it, but it was fun to look at. But that's the thing about foraging that makes it so much different from farming, is it doesn't matter what the weather is something's doing good.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:23:39):
Something's out there.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:23:40):
Something is doing good, something is having a good year.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:23:43):
You just have to orient to where you're looking. Now you got your own property and you host camps on that property. Before we met or before this event, we had talked a few other times and you had mentioned how you had taken some time to make some improvements to the property, to make those camps more enjoyable in some way. Can you tell me what your goals were there?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:24:12):
When you have a bunch of people for a camp and then it rains, it sucks. I wanted to have a pavilion where we could hold classes under if it was raining. In keeping with the foraging theme of the business, we foraged some trees and made a pavilion out of cedar.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:24:31):
Also, I wanted to have forageable water on site, so we founded a well. It just keeps to the atmosphere of the camp itself. I also bought a little tiny trailer to have as a first aid tent. Because you have to be prepared for people that are going to cut their finger when they're trying to carve a spoon or something.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:24:55):
How about bathroom facilities, is that something on your list?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:24:57):
Outhouse.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:24:58):
Outhouse. Now on your property, if you're trying to manage for some of these species that can be foraged, what are techniques that you can do to improve some of the popular forageable items? I think you have a special word for this.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:25:13):
Farmaging.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:25:14):
Tell us.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:25:15):
I go out on the state land and I pick stuff and then I farmage it into my landscaping at my place, and then I just let it grow. I went out and foraged it and then planted it. I also use the word farmaging for when I go onto somebody's farm and pick all of their weeds, like the purse lane and the goose foot that they don't want. That's also farmaging.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:25:42):
On your property, or if you had enough property where you could forage regularly, do you think a CSA or some community garden model, or something like that could work?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:25:53):
If you did a food forest.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:25:54):
A food forest.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:25:56):
A food forest, or some permaculture type thing. You can't just buy 20 acres and let people go out there, that's not going to work. But you have to somehow increase the density of stuff.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:26:09):
Maybe have trails or something like that.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:26:11):
Have trails and then get some of the more native fruit trees. But some of the things that you can't necessarily go to pick for nanny berries.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:26:20):
Nanny berries.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:26:20):
Or haws, or things like that. Things that they grow naturally, they grow wild. You just got to encourage them. You got to farmage them.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:26:33):
Does that involve playing God a little bit with what survives, what doesn't? Other than just planting, would you clear areas, or remove certain species, invasive species?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:26:42):
I'm not that sophisticated. I do control invasives as best I can. But no, I think more than anything, it's just about encouraging the things that you like. For example, I planted a couple years ago, I planted a bunch of leaks, because I didn't have leaks on the property.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:27:05):
I have to leave them there for five years or so and so nobody can touch them, even though they're on the camp, people come for the camp, they get excited about the leaks and I'm like, you can't touch the leaks.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:27:15):
But then once they get to a point where they're harvestable, you almost need to harvest them to manage them, because they get root bound if they just get too dense. Harvesting them actually opens them up and makes them grow better. I think you have to know each plant.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:27:34):
Yeah, definitely.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:27:34):
Because that works for leaks. It wouldn't work for lotus or something like that. You'd have to manage that differently.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:27:46):
This is the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot of plants with a lot of very unique biologies out there. In your business model, as an education provider who does classes pretty much on the fly and I will travel and teach a class here, there everywhere. How do you plan for an excursion? How do you set it up? How do you set dates and get it out there for people to hear about?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:28:13):
If I'm working with one of the local farms of course, they put it in their newsletter or whatever they have on their website. If I'm working on state land, it's all just me. But either way, I put it on my website it goes on Facebook, it goes on Instagram, it goes on TikTok, it goes on YouTube.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:28:30):
I just have to put it out everywhere. I'm not one of these social media guru things with thousands and millions of followers or anything like that. But between all of them, I have enough followers that-
ben (first and main speaker) (01:28:44):
You're consistent. I think that's half the battle. You have consistent releases of things.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:28:49):
... Yeah. I've been doing it for almost 10 years now, so I've built up a following.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:28:57):
I'd say so. What's the way that people pay you to do these things?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:29:03):
Cash, if I'm lucky.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:29:04):
Yeah?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:29:05):
Yeah. But also I have a Square.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:29:09):
You've got Square?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:29:11):
Yeah.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:29:11):
That must have been what I did, because I went through a website thing.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:29:14):
If you pay through the website, you go through Square.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:29:15):
Is there data that you harvest from that in any meaning full way that clues you in on something that doesn't go well, versus something that does just based on the numbers that square can give you on revenue?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:29:29):
Probably. My accounting method is pen and paper, because I do have to account for cash and probably two thirds of my income is cash. I have to be able to account for that through something other than Square. I just use ledger.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:29:54):
There are certain types of camp like the mushroom camp, always makes a good profit, because there's not a lot of expense for me in that. On the other hand, I have another camp where I had to buy $500 worth of beaver meat, so that's going to cut into my profit.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:30:09):
Beaver meat?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:30:10):
Yeah, because we eat foraged foods all weekend.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:30:12):
Beaver meat from the animal beaver?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:30:14):
Yeah, it tastes like roast beef.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:30:17):
You had to buy 500 pounds?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:30:18):
Yeah, because I don't trap.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:30:20):
Where does want to acquire 500 pounds of beaver meat?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:30:23):
You have a network because you're a forager. There are people who do trap nuisance beavers in the state.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:30:36):
I've had groundhog before and it tastes a lot like hamburger too.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:30:38):
Groundhog's pretty good. Beaver's better.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:30:41):
Is it?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:30:41):
Yes. Also, you get a lot of jokes when you serve beaver to a lot of people.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:30:44):
I'm sure.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:30:46):
We're actually making beaver tacos, just to make it even better.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:30:52):
Oh gosh. Plug your ears kids. As far as I know, you're the main person I've interacted through with the business Forage for Food. But on your website, there's at least one other person mentioned who can lead tours. How does that work within the business model? Are they getting a cut or how is the-
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:31:16):
No, it's mostly just me. Min and Sean, I don't think Sean's on the website, but I have basically two other instructors who do classes occasionally. Really it's just them tagging onto the name that I've built. We're all independent.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:31:36):
I see.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:31:37):
They do their thing, I do mine. I just allow them because it also gives me more of a network as well, by having other instructors on there. I shouldn't say that, a lot of times when we do the weekend camps, you never do those by yourself.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:31:51):
You always have to have at least one other person, because you cannot be on from 4:00 o'clock Friday until 4:00 o'clock Sunday. You just can't do it. You need another person to trade off with. We usually have a work study at the camp as well, just to have somebody that's responsible for making sure we have plenty of firewood all the time.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:32:09):
A work study, is that code for a third person doing something?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:32:13):
Yes, somebody that comes to the camp for free in exchange for work. They don't pay for the camp they come in and it's their job to cut vegetables and like I said, gather firewood, make sure to get up at 6:00 o'clock in the morning, because I don't want to. Make sure that the fire's ready at 7:00 to cook breakfast, things like that.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:32:31):
You'd mentioned how by having some other people lead classes under the business name that, that can spread the word about what you're doing there. What other types of advertising and customer acquisition efforts do you have to go through, or do you feel work well for what you do?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:32:51):
It's mostly social media.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:32:52):
It's mostly social media.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:32:53):
Like I said, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube. I post stuff on all of it and so do the other teachers. They post in different places and so it broadens that network. But I don't know. Sometimes I write articles and throw them my magazines and stuff like that, so that's another way. Or do things like this.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:33:25):
You'd mentioned how you do these ... Go ahead.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:33:27):
I was just going to say whatever that word was you used for philanthropic, I do that.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:33:33):
Philanthropic equity.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:33:34):
Yes. Yes. I try to volunteer for a class at least once every couple of months, for people who can't necessarily afford to pay for the classes. Or try to do some volunteer event, every couple of months. That is part of my business model, is making sure that I do give back as part of it. Like they were saying, it pays better than any paid advertising. It's amazing.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:34:03):
Word really spreads fast. You had mentioned how you do classes on farms. Do you also provide scouting services to land owners who wish to maybe develop something like some community garden model, or allowing people to come out of the land of forage, but they just don't know what they have or what they could tell the customers. I see mushrooms back there sometimes. I don't know what they are. Could they hire you and you go out and say, this is what I'm seeing and what you may?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:34:36):
Yeah, I do that. I do it throughout most of the lower half of the state. There's another career foraging instructor who lives up by Traverse City.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:34:46):
Clay was his name, right?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:34:48):
Clay, yeah. We have unofficially divided the state in half and he stays up there and I stay down here. Two or three times a year, we swap and do a class. He'll come down to Ann Arbor and do a class and I'll go up to Traverse City and do a class a few times a year just to.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:35:07):
But like I said, it's an unofficial dividing of the state, because I don't really want to drive more than a couple of hours to do a class. And neither does he, so that line falls right in the middle.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:35:22):
What's the rate for that service of scouting some land for people.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:35:26):
I usually charge $50 an hour plus travel and most of the evaluations depend. It doesn't really matter if you have an acre or 100 acres. It usually can be evaluated in two to three hours. Because when you have a big property, you still have the same habitat types.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:35:53):
You can be 50 feet into one and it's about the same as being 500 feet into one.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:35:56):
Exactly. At the most, if you had a really diverse property, it might take a few hours. Even in a very small property, there's usually enough to talk about to keep it going for an hour and a half to two hours.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:36:12):
Usually what I do is I'll get those pin flags, those pink flags with the little wires. I walk around the property with whoever I'm evaluating and I'll stick pins in and this is a nettle, this is a mulberry tree.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:36:26):
I number the flags and I make them walk around with me with a notebook and keep track. I'll tell them this is a nettle, you should look for it in June. They'll have this little pin flag and then they have it in their notebook to come back and look at that pin flag in June.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:36:41):
That's a really neat idea.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:36:44):
And again Clay, I think does the same thing up in the northern half of the state. If you're out of my range, because it would be really cost prohibitive for me to drive all the way.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:36:55):
You charge mileage too.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:36:56):
Yeah, I charge travel. It gives me about a two hour range to really be not cost prohibitive, but say I think he does something similar. I don't know if he uses pin flags, but he does something similar.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:37:08):
I had talked to him over the phone too. I don't remember what he uses, but he uses something. How do you get your customers to have the best experience that they're hoping to get when they come to your classes, or camps?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:37:21):
It's usually really easy because most people don't realize how much is out there, and they come and they're like we're going to take this two hour walk and we're going to see three or four plants. 25 plants later, their head is just exploding and they're happy. There's a lot out there.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:37:37):
Like you said, I think maybe your clientele is I don't know how to describe them, across all the political spectrums and everything. If they go to a class like that, they're really interested in that kind of thing. It tends to be easy. Do you run into people who bring a friend who's not interested at all? And they're like, I got dragged along.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:37:59):
Occasionally, but if they have a camera you can usually engage them and get them, so you don't want to hear about all this, can you take pictures for me?
ben (first and main speaker) (01:38:09):
Interesting.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:38:10):
I teach college as my real job, and so I've had a lot of practice getting uninterested people to get engaged.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:38:21):
I've got my last two questions are the same I asked everybody else. What has been in your time doing this, what's your most common complaint as a manager doing this work? What is the most common complaint you get from customers? You had said that they're mostly happy, but maybe there's something.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:38:41):
I'm trying to think. Sometimes people complain about the food, especially on the weekend camps where we're eating foraged food all weekend and they're like I'm going to go eat forage food all weekend. And then I feed them beaver and they're afraid of it and they starve.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:38:55):
Sometimes that. A big complaint I got from a long time customer who actually this particular customer has been very influential in my business, because she constantly is pushing me. You should do this, you should do this, you should do this.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:39:15):
She's so naggy that I just do it to shut her up and then it works. She's been instrumental in my business to be honest. But her big complaint always is that, is there anything I can do with this besides tea? Because when you forage, you make everything into tea.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:39:33):
A lot of soups and teas.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:39:35):
That actually was my answer to her. I was yeah, you can make it into broth instead. It just depends on what you put in with it. That's common complaint is that a lot of people, when they're first learning to forage, they expect that I'm going to go out and take this two hour class and I'm going to be able to feed myself.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:39:54):
That's not how it works. It takes three to five years to learn how to forage and feed yourself. I think that disappoints a lot of people, so I get some complaints there.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:40:02):
How about as a manager?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:40:04):
I don't really manage anybody. Like I said, the people that work with me are-
ben (first and main speaker) (01:40:10):
How about as a business runner, an educational business runner?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:40:12):
... I think probably my biggest thing is when people show up in a mini skirt and flip flops, because for a weekend camp in the middle of nowhere. I'm telling them, there's no running water and there's no bathroom and we're going foraging and they're completely unprepared. That's probably my biggest complaint.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:40:36):
Very fair. I think that's one that you would have in common with everybody in this room, unprepared for the conditions of the day.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:40:43):
Completely, or they come and I do a New Year's day plant walk every year and they'll show up with no gloves. It's freaking New Year's day, we're going to be outside for three hours you have no gloves. It really irks me if you can tell by my voice.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:41:03):
We got about 15 minutes left and I wanted to make sure we had time for any questions from you also. Naim, you want to grab that mic there. Does anybody have questions for Rachel about her educational business, or foraging in general? Is that you Mariel?
audience member (01:41:22):
Thank you. Do you have any issues with people sampling things that they should be eating, and how do you communicate what is edible what's okay to eat that kind of thing?
ben (first and main speaker) (01:41:36):
We saw a death cap mushroom when I was with you.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:41:37):
Yeah, we did see a death cap mushroom. We do see things. There's only a couple of plants and a couple of mushrooms that can kill you, the rest are just going to make you really unhappy. As long as I can make sure people avoid those few that can kill you, we're usually good.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:41:55):
That being said, if somebody sticks something in their mouth without asking me about it, I always tell them that it will kill them. That usually stops them from doing it again.
audience member (01:42:07):
I got a question about the six cubic feet of stored foraged food, what that event's like? What are they eating? What is the event? When is the event? Can I come to the event?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:42:20):
Yes, you can come to the event. It's in June.
audience member (01:42:25):
Its fire alarm also, potentially.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:42:27):
We might have to evacuate.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:42:31):
There's a fire alarm. I suppose we maybe should work our way to the exit. Thank you Rachel. Give a hand for Rachel.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:42:47):
Hello?
ben (first and main speaker) (01:42:48):
Hey Rachel, it's Ben.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:42:50):
Hey Ben, how's it going?
ben (first and main speaker) (01:42:52):
Good. Good. I sent you a postcard. I hope you got it. It was a thank you postcard for coming to EXPO.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:42:58):
Not yet, but I'm sure it will be here.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:43:04):
It has baskets on it, because you had a basket when we were foraging, so I thought it fit. Anyway, I was going through listening to the recording that I had made of all the interviews that day.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:43:23):
We almost got through perfectly except for that stinking fire alarm. My buddy Naim had asked a question to you. He was very impressed with your talk and he wanted to know more about the foraging get together.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:43:41):
I was talking to him on the way out.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:43:44):
That's right. There's just no audio record of it. But I do have audio record of him asking the question and then just no answer, because we had to all evacuate.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:43:57):
I wondered if I might be able to record this call and just have you tell me about that camp, and then I'll just stick it into the podcast as I call Rachel back after we all escaped imminent doom, and here's what she said about that. Is that okay?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:44:18):
Yes. Yes. The event is the Great Lakes Foragers Gathering. We've been doing it for about nine years now, and it's probably the biggest gathering of foragers in the Great Lakes Region. I don't know of many others that are nearly as big.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:44:36):
We just all get together for the weekend and we have foraging classes and bushcraft class classes, and plant walks and we all cook forage foods together and it's a lot of fun.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:44:47):
When is it? It's in June. I want to say the 23rd to the 26th. You can find out the information at willforageforfood.com on the upcoming events page. Yes, that'll tell you all about it if you're interested, so how you can get be there.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:45:08):
I think that does it. Also, when I was reviewing listening to it, I think I misheard you in the in-person setting. I thought you said 500 pounds of beaver meat, but I think you said $500 of beaver meat. Is that the same thing as 500 pounds?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:45:28):
No, it's not. It's not. No.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:45:31):
How many pounds does $500 get you?
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:45:35):
I think I paid $30 a pound for it. But I can't tell you the market price of it, because I think the market price if you were to actually go out and try to buy it is closer to $45.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:45:48):
Significantly less than 500 pounds of beaver meat.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:45:51):
Yes, significantly less than 500 pounds. I'm actually able to store this in my freezer. I put 500 pounds of beaver, that'd be a lot of beavers too.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:46:06):
I'm glad I was able to clarify that.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:46:11):
It was fun.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:46:12):
Thank you for coming to EXPO. Thank you for following up with me on this call as well Rachel.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:46:18):
Not a problem.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:46:19):
Have a good holiday, okay.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:46:21):
Yeah, you too.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:46:23):
See you later, Rachel.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:46:24):
Have a good one.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:46:25):
You too. Bye.
rachel (seventh speaker) (01:46:26):
Bye.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:46:27):
Thanks for joining me in this extra long feature of a live recording from the Great Lakes EXPO back in early December in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This is put together by the Great Lakes Vegetable Producers Network.
ben (first and main speaker) (01:46:41):
We're sponsored by the North Central Integrated Pest Management Center. We're also supported by the University of Minnesota, who's helping us host this podcast on transistor. Stay tuned for other episodes in the wintertime at glveg. net/listen. I hope to see you soon. Bye.
PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [01:47:03]
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