BEHIND THE SCENES: PREPARING OUR MARKET TRUCKS FOR PROFIT!

Filmed September 21, 2024. Watch how I pack our box trucks for a profitable day at the Farmers' Markets around Columbus Ohio. Meticulous organization is key to having a successful market day.
Saturday mornings begin at 4 am during the harvest season loading our trucks with numerous types of vegetables to sell at our many locations. However, late in the season we are beginning to run low on most items due to many of the crops being finished and no longer being harvested.
Broccoli and cauliflower will now be our new "big money" items for the next few weeks until the end of October when the season officially concludes for 2024.
September is our "profit month", all of our bills and farm expenses have been paid for during June, July and August and now we are slugging away money for winter and retirement.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and at the end of the video I will explain three reasons for the decline in sales at our Farmers' Markets in late September. #farming #garden #vegetables

[@wishwellfarms]

May through August, not a dollar of profit is made but September is our "profit month"...all of our farm expenses have been paid for during June, July and August and now we are slugging away money for winter and maxing out our retirement funds. Only a few weeks left in my season so I gotta make it count! Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and at the end of the video I explain three reasons for the decline in sales at our Farmers' Markets in late September

[@deanhoman1958]

You are a really hard working son of a gun. You never seem to slow down.

[@wishwellfarms]

Summers can be rough but I have plenty of downtime in the late fall and winter.

[@DDL2728]

You are such a hard-working man - impressive!! Your videos are always interesting & inspiring! Thank you for the videos & for editing them so well! God bless y'all! 👍🙏♥️

[@wishwellfarms]

Thank you, I really enjoy the process

[@jasonkelly7930]

Pray for our farmers in Eastern NC. The hurricane dumped in some areas 3 to 4 inches in 30 minutes. Some farmers have just begun digging peanuts and sweet potatoes Its been one of those years

[@wishwellfarms]

Yes, I feel so bad for everyone in the path of this hurricane, especially farmers

[@skeeet5758]

I bought some apples at the store ready to eat supper sweet

[@jamesducey2685]

You earn because you are blessed and work hard!

[@wishwellfarms]

Amen

[@skeeet5758]

Back in the day I used to love to do that I would go to Farmers and just get a truckload of just miscellaneous stuff and sit right beside the road and sell I loved it I loved making deals like that it just it made me so happy on the inside... Oftentimes you know they were so honest that you could actually get the vegetables and then just sell and we would work out a deal on what was sold it was a pretty good deal pretty good hustle I love it make some good money. Talk about making a farmers happy they loved it

[@wishwellfarms]

Good way to make a quick buck!

[@oby-1607]

Do you have a handbook for each of your trucks for instructions in case you have different employees on any given run? Also a handbook in case you can't be there to load the trucks. One of the most important rules in business is to not have someone who is irreplaceable. The flow must go on. As usual, you are doing a tremendously good job and I wish I had the markets you have. I have a couple of good ones and a couple of so-so ones.

[@wishwellfarms]

I started working on a handbook years ago, but never finished it. unfortunately, if something happens to me, my wife most likely be liquidating everything unless my younger brother Joel wanted to take some of it over but he’s got his hands full with the grain operation. My three kids in their early 20s are interested in it.

[@hawkeye7435]

😊😊😊😊😊

[@_Elijah_1979]

Excellent video Jason 😀📸👍💯

[@wishwellfarms]

Thanks Elijah!

[@DreamFarmUS]

It would be great if you could make a video about the plant varieties you choose on your farm and the seeds you have sown.

[@wishwellfarms]

I’ve discussed every variety of plants and seeds that we planted this year in many past videos, but I will try to do a follow up video at the end of the season, or maybe one of what varieties we are ordering in December.

[@sethbrown5736]

The heat for sure is a factor. I scaled way back on farmers markets and little street festivals this year. Taking the family out to stroll around is just miserable. This drought has been brutal. We had pretty much all new trees die except maybe 8. Most of garden struggled even with irrigation. Just overall a depressing end of summer keeping us home.

[@wishwellfarms]

We definitely didn’t have it that bad, we actually were way too wet for most of the spring and early summer. Overall, it was still a great season for us, but just ended kind of sad. Now it’s a muddy mess out there again but we needed that rain that’s for sure!

[@AhTechus]

You have a talent for storytelling! A few more examples would enhance it

[@wishwellfarms]

Thanks I appreciate that. I hope I can continue to get better and better as time goes on.

[@ateadelaidachannel8756]

❤❤❤

[@dauber9378]

Are you planning another camping trip yet? I think we've had plenty of rain now lol. I'm just up the road in North Lewisburg and plan on coming to birch bark. I was born and raised in Bellefontaine and remember coming to your farm with my mom to pick vegetables when I was young in the 90s.

[@wishwellfarms]

Hey neighbor, I’ve put my kayak away for the winter, now it’s backpacking season for me. I have a 2-3 week RV trip in New England in October and then a 10 night backpacking trip in NC,SC,GA as soon as I wrap up harvest. That’s awesome that you remember coming here in the 90’s!

[@dauber9378]

@wishwellfarms that's awesome man! You definitely like to stay busy! I just bought my first yak so I'll be floating the Mad River until spring 🤣

[@LifeinthehighlandsofBenguet]

Hi im a subscriber from the Philippines

[@wishwellfarms]

Wow, the Philippines!

[@ragnarokjoe]

@lifeinthehighlandofbenguet...mayat koma no wada kaman nina enya..farmers market tapno direct farmers man-ilako sarilida ay produkto ta maka-an san middleman..

[@cinm9565]

Great video!

[@wishwellfarms]

Thank you I appreciate that!

[@danrussell9207]

I am behind on your videos as I was camping! You gotta be about ready to take off or already taken off on your trip by now? I hope you get lots of footage of that trip!

[@wishwellfarms]

Hope you had a great camping trip! Keeping up with 3 videos a week would be hard for anyone! We had to postpone a week and switched gears and are now going up Wisconsin, through the Upper Penninsula of Michigan and back down to Ohio for 10 days. New England will have to wait for another time.

[@danrussell9207]

@wishwellfarms oh no bummer I know you have talked about how you have both looked forward to that trip! Still look forward to video from that trip.if you plan too!

[@Well_I_am_just_saying]

With how bad inflation has been the past few years, I would be willing to bet that you could raise your prices much more than you think you can.

[@wishwellfarms]

Yeah maybe on some of the items. It’s a fine line when you have competitors right next you though…you can loose customers really quick if not careful.

[@ManMountainMetals]

Time to upgrade the water pump and maybe another well on the other side. That will guarantee you won't need it at all next year. 😂❤

[@wishwellfarms]

Right, for sure lol. I’ve learned to just roll with it. Yeah we might get burnt on a couple crops two or three times a decade, but that’s why I don’t put all my eggs in one basket, being diversified and planting multiple times has always worked for us.

[@trfyeomanfarmer]

Really enjoy your videos! We're winding down our main season, too. But starting to replant our hoophouses for winter greens production. Question: did you build your pack shed or was it there when you bought it?

[@wishwellfarms]

Oh my goodness, I cannot imagine starting up hoop house production at this point in the season, I have to take a break for a couple months. I’ll be backpacking and RV camping around the country all through October and November, and then start getting busy again in December preparing for next year.

[@wishwellfarms]

Our packing shed was an old dairy barn and we just gutted it and poured concrete and built coolers using existing walls as one side. I plan to do a video showing all this when things slow down.

[@trfyeomanfarmer]

@wishwellfarms it's a grind. Haha We have two hoophouses we grow winter greens and overwintered onions in, and 4 catapillar tunnels we grow through December. I have some backpacking trips coming up, too. I host a couple trips through Midwest Backpackers in the fall and early winter.

[@wishwellfarms]

@@trfyeomanfarmer nice! not sure if you know this or not but I have a second channel under my name that is all backpacking and kayak camping. I've backpacked thousands of miles around the country and even hold a few fastpacking speed records called FKT's (fastest known times).

[@trfyeomanfarmer]

@@wishwellfarms Yep, I'm a subscriber. I've done lots of sections of the SHT and BWCA in MN, what there is in IA, and a chunk of the Ozarks in S MO. Don't get out as often as I used to, but still like to squeeze in a few one/two nighters here and there in the spring and fall/winter.

[@steveddavis]

Great video 👊 Do you go out to the markets often?

[@wishwellfarms]

Thanks! For nearly 18 years I went to Markets myself every Saturday, but as we continued to expand, I found that I couldn’t get everything loaded on the trucks and trailers in time on Saturday mornings unless I got up at 3 AM, and even then I wouldn’t have time to eat a proper breakfast before heading to Market. So now I just make sure I hire good employees and I stay on the farm after packing. In addition, it’s important for me to be here in case one of the trucks has a breakdown or blows a tire Otherwise there is no one to take care of the problem if I’m at a market and when you have thousands of dollars on the line, someone needs to be at the farm and ready. That was the long answer lol.

[@mikewalter8547]

We had a cold snap a couple weeks ago so my corn didnt get ready on time so we didnt have corn in the store for 3 days had everything else. I dont know if it was the cold or lack of corn but our sales have plummeted the last 2 weeks. Weird??? I"m ready to get away from here anyway.

[@wishwellfarms]

yes, sales are always way down for us this time of year, just what happens I guess. Normally we get a little boost from pumpkins and mums for a few weeks but not this year...I'm ready to head out here real soon, wish I didn't have so much field and greenhouse cleanup ahead of me.

[@Geologistandcoins]

Do you invest much time in value adding products. I know you have your brothers products but instead of throwing old product turn it into something. Obviously you would need to outsource this as you are insanely busy but I’m sure there are places where you could supply the ingredients and get a share of the long life products at the end.

[@wishwellfarms]

We make a few thousand jars of relish each year with our peppers but that's about it...just dont have the time or manpower to do more and don't really want to. After close to 30 years of growing and selling produce I'm not wanting to do more of anything at this point in my career.

[@dnawormcastings]

🇳🇿❤️

[@RonaldEdmonds-wi5sn]

Instead of throwing produce away why not donate to a church