Welcome back to another episode of Lost in the Farmers Market. This post is a week late, and there is a good reason for that. I changed lanes on the post to be mid-development. You see, I received an interesting question about a week ago, a customer asked exactly how Bordeaux Regional Nursery came to be and, at the time I hadn’t really thought much about how I did it, just that I had done it. So I kind of explained the symphony of errors that created my business as best I could and afterward got to thinking that I had done a pretty poor job of covering the history behind BRN. So on LITFM as a bit of a diversion here is the history of how Bordeaux Regional Nursery happened.
So let start with a little history, the idea of running a micro-nursery didn’t start immediately. Honestly I didn’t even come up with the term ‘micro-nursery’ until 2014. The basis of the business started on Saturday April the 11th 2009 when my property was part of Sustainable Sandhill’s First Annual Urban farm tour. The tour had eight garden locations in Cumberland County and eight locations in Moore County North Carolina. On a virtually non-existent budget and about three months of lead-time I managed to build the first beds in what would become the Botanical Testing Gardens and the basis of my Web Log ‘Lost In the Farmer’s Market’ was begun with the photographic surveys being undertaken at the time. The impetus to begin what would become Bordeaux Regional Nursery would come from a visitor’s question as to if or if not I had plants to sell. Unfortunately during that first tour I did not, but it effectively planted the seed for a business that would become significant later on. A year later on Saturday April the 10th 2010, the Second Annual Urban Farm Tour occurred, and by that time I had somewhat upgraded my growing areas and upgraded equipment. I had a small amount of surplus to offer and visitors snapped it up, for once, this gardening hobby of mine threatened to actually pay for itself. At the time I was attending Fayetteville Technical Community College and the very idea of a Micro-Nursery did not exactly fit in with the normal business models that were being taught. At the time I clashed with my at least one of my professors as I foresaw the need for a less rigid business structure to achieve a unconventional and asymmetric operating standard. Not surprisingly, when the basic business plan for what would become BRN a few years later was turned in, I got a B-grade but some nebulous and not-quite understanding feedback.
The real big break was in April of 2011 on May the 14th when the Farm Tour turned into Urban Farm Day. The tour was condensed into a single location near the City’s first downtown community garden, and so the Garden Tour book was assembled and I ramped up production with the intention to exceed demand. The fledgling Nursery business was being supported by income drawn off my operations as an Independent landscaper (I called that company Bordeaux Light Landscaping or BL2). At the first Urban Farm Day I sold out, and had requests for more after the fact. However operations were limited by a lack of equipment and materials as well as poor storage facilities. This change in planning lead to the policy of undertaking a heavy upgrade every three years, to keep abreast of the needs of customers and the advancement of technology. For note, these periodic upgrades would be called ‘Expansion Years’ and 2014, 2017 and 2020 were all expansion years. The last year that Sustainable Sandhills did an Urban Farm event was 2012 on May the 12th and this time I sold out and had enough plant material to cover orders for a month afterwards. My landscaping clients were requesting items from the surplus stock and the inkling that this could be a real year-round business began to present itself in my notes about how to proceed. The real big break was on April 25th 2013, when I was invited to sell some plants at the Fayetteville City Market on Saturdays. I had been a member of the then quite new group called Sustainable Neighbors (at the time they were called the Neighborhood Grange), for about a year. From an ethical, operational and messaging perspective Sustainable Neighbors was more like the Sustainable Sandhills of old and I found the group a better match for the ideologies I espoused then and still fancy today. Sustainable Neighbors as a group was more helpful to the formation of Bordeaux Regional Nursery than many realize. You see, it was the group’s leader Marsha Howe who coined the phrase ‘It’s Ok to get paid’, and this is a truth that many don’t realize when they start a new business. No matter what you do, someone is always going to complain about your services or product because you can’t please some people. At the end of the day, your cost of operation does not disappear just because that one person didn’t like the price of your Petunias. The band Supertramp has lyrics in ‘Goodbye Stranger’ to this affect as well;
“Now some they do and some they don't
And some you just can't tell
And some they will and some they won't
With some it's just as well.”
Both Marsha’s statement and the song lyrics cover the heart and soul of customer service for a small business offering a novel product or service. It also covers the hardest lesson you will learn, how to say no to a customer. Ultimately I ended up representing the group at the market, BRN became one of the group’s sponsors and the idea of a micro-nursery appeared in print on my businesses signage in 2014. Out of all that BRN has become the nursery operation with an unwavering commitment to offering GMO-Free, Organic food plants at a competitive price. It took eight years (2010-2018) to create a logistical network to get reliable, consistent set of materials that ensured quality and this supply chain was kept as local as possible to keep money in the community and support other small businesses. The R&D budget ended up being mostly used in the pursuit of new plant varieties, growing ‘mother’ plants from which cuttings could be taken to locally produce the next big thing in organic sustainable urban agriculture.
Unlike other businesses we were never about getting rich, shareholders or dominating the agriculture market, however it is about providing a higher-quality product at a competitive and affordable price. There is one other thing that makes BRN a true Nursery operation, we grow our own, we don’t buy from big-agra, we don’t buy seeds or plants on commission from other companies, and we won’t ever buy supplies from folks like Monsanto. With all that said, we still have comparable if not lower prices than big box stores which some have decried as impossible over the years. This is how a sustainable, local and competitive gardening business is built. Business experts often say that less than 20% of businesses make it to their tenth year of operations, even fewer make it past fifteen. If you count our humble beginnings, we’re somewhere between ten and eleven years of operations and even with the current Covid-19 economic chaos we are doing just fine.
Ironically, Covid-19 has been good for business, customers are finally starting to understand that growing your own isn’t just a catchphrase it’s an important skill in an age of food-insecurity. The belief that all agriculture is rife with back-breaking labor, covered in dirt and grime and indicated by unpleasant smells is finally starting to be lifted to reveal something different. Agriculture is quite possibly the world’s oldest science, at times it’s brutally practical, vulgar and often resistant to change but in the end it’s a critical pillar of civilization and culture. This is how Bordeaux Regional Nursery was built and how it will continue to go forward.
With all that stuff said, and to fill in the issues with the delay in posting this, LITFM may just have some videos made in-house at the testing gardens. I’m calling them LITFM Garden Shorts, they’re videos that are under five minutes in length where I talk about a specific plant in the test gardens. The history, biology and the Botanical Latin are all covered for your gardening pleasure,check the link below.
With all that garden goodness covered this is the part of the blog where I have to advertise for the Fayetteville City Market. Now I know you readers probably don’t much like advertisements, but by booth at the City Market helps to cover the costs of running the test garden and literally maintains the Research & Development budget that is used to bring you the information that has made up the backbone of this blog. Also, as of the start of 2019, my booth can now process credit or debit cards thanks to the acquisition of s a Square reader so your payment options have doubled. With that said, if you want to get some GMO-free, Organic vegetables, herbs and fruiting shrubs come on down to the Fayetteville City Market on 325 Maxwell Street in downtown Fayetteville between the Hours of 9:00 am and 1:00 pm on Saturdays. Even in bad weather the market goes on though you might have to look for me under the ‘arches’ of the Transportation Museum’s front entryway.
Plants & Stuff Available Now:
Food Plants:
Pepper – Aji Chinchi: $3.00
Pepper – Hungarian Paprika: $3.00
Pepper – Inferno: $3.00
Pepper – Pasilla Bajio: $3.00
Pepper – Shishito: $3.00
Pepper – Siracha: $3.00
Pepper – Sweet Banana: $3.00
Tomato – Cherokee Purple: $3.00 (Medium-large)
Tomato – Chocolate Cherry: $3.00 (Cherry)
Tomato – Glacier: $3.00 (Large Cherry)
Tomato – Gold Rush: $3.00 (Yellow Cherry)
Tomato – Mountain Spring: $3.00 (Medium)
Tomato – Pink Accordion: $3.00 (Large) (Limited Quantity)
Herbs:
Herb, Agastache – Golden Jubilee : $3.00
Herb, Basil – Eritrean: $3.00
Herb, Black Fennel: $3.00
Herb, Borage : $3.00 (Limited Quantity)
Herb, Coneflower – Pow Wow Wild Berry : $3.00
Herb, Coneflower – Primadonna Rose : $3.00 (Limited Quantity)
Herb, Hibiscus – Cranberry : $5.00 (One left!)
Herb, Horehound : $3.00
Herb, Marjoram: $3.00 (Limited Quantity)
Herb, Oregano: $3.00
Herb, Rue: $3.00
Herb, Sage: $3.00
Herb, Tansy: $3.00
Herb, Thyme – English: $3.00
Ornamental Plants:
Angel’s Trumpet/Datura – ‘Black Currant Swirl’: $3.00 (One left!)
Black Eye Susan – ‘Prairie Glow’: $3.00
Castor Bean – ‘Zanzibar’: $3.00 (One left!)
Castor bean – ‘Impala’: $3.00
Cotton – Erlene’s Green: $3.00
Cotton – Mississippi Brown Lint: $3.00
Cotton – Red Foliated White: $3.00
Cranesbill – ‘Vision Violet’: $3.00
Flowering Tobacco – ‘Baby Bella’: $3.00 (Limited Quantity)
Mallow – ‘Zebrina’: $3.00
Milkweed – ‘Hairy Balls’: $3.00
Coming Soon:
Herb, Basil – Wild
Herb, Basil – Holy
Herb, Cuban Oregano
Herb, Cuban Oregano – Cerveza & Lime
Herb, Italian Oregano
Herb, Roselle – Saint Kitts & Nevis
Herb, Roselle – Thai
Sesame – Shirogoma (Limited Quantity)
Pepper – Biquinho Red (Limited Quantity)
Pepper – Biquinho Yellow (Limited Quantity)
Due to the current Covid-19 situation and the state’s requirement that all citizens are not to gather in groups of more than ten, the weekly Sustainable neighbors meeting is online. Please check the sustainable neighbors Meetup.com page for more info about how to attend our online meeting.
https://www.meetup.com/SustainableNeighbors/
Since our meetings have an open-door policy you don’t need to sign up for anything or join anything, you can come on in and join the meetings. If not, you can always send me questions through this blog or visit the farmer’s market.
This brings to a close the ninth LITFM post of 2020; stay tuned the next episode which should be posted on the 29th of May. There will be more garden updates and other cool stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment