Well, I started building my benches this week, and the sprout area has been mostly cleared of blackberries but it looks like i will still have to do some by hand. When the tractor was in clearing the brush a salmon berry stem punctured the radiator!!
For the benches I have just built the bench tops which took about 4 hours. They are a strong but simple wooden frame with a sheet of coroplast for a top. There will be six bench tops in all, for an area of about 200 square feet. They will be about 3.5 feet off the ground, though I have not yet decided on a height. Here are pictures of the bench top bottom and top:
You can see a slight overlap of the coroplast over the frame where water will be able to drain away into a trough or into a well draining ground which will likely be covered with a thick layer of bark mulch.
I also picked up a table for the market and have a design for one of my signs. The table is a 6′ folding table which will be easy op carry on my bike. I also need to pick up some coolers for the sprouts at the market. These will be about $65.00 each and I will likely need three of them. Costs are starting to add up now! But if sales are good I could pay off the infrastructure in only a few weeks though I am getting nervous about my sales potential. Although my last attempt at sprouts was successful I was also selling many other products so I will have to display and market myself well to be successful. I also need to prioce the sprouts so as to ensure repeat customers. even at $2.50/bag I wil do OK, but I think about $3.50 will be my price. They will be generous bags.
So I still need to get my signs finalized; get a cash box and table cloth for the market; modify my bike trailers to carry all my market supplies; makes spreadsheets for tracking sales and hours; plan for palnting to account for market attendacne (which I still do not know yet); get more buckets for soaking and rinsing seeds; determine a sanitaiton method for the seeds; get labels and bags for the sprouts; determine a display set up; contact other potential markets such as SPUD and local supermarkets as well as restaurants.
Yikes!!
fun stuff! but stressful!