February 24, 2019 Seeds Sprouting

One of the new chain sign designs

It may be that we will never
have enough eggs to hang this one.

We have been keeping an eye on the new seeds put into flats the other day. The great news is that it seems the sprouting tables are working much better than the sprouting chamber I built last year. We have carrots, dikon and french radishes, and a few others showing up, only three days after planting.

Carrots usually take seven to ten days, same for radishes, so this is a vast improvement. Others might take a bit longer. Tomatoes usually take abut two weeks, in last year's chamber it took ten days to sprout a tomato and we couldn't keep the flats cool enough when the sun came out. The tables can simply be left uncovered in full sunlight.

Things are definitely growing. And to that end we are beginning to work on the produce stand as we continue to sort out strawberry plants and all the rest of it.

Today I did the graphics design for twenty-four placard signs, each for a different crop.  These signs have to be seen and recognized from a half a mile away by a driver, enough time that the driver can make a decision to take a closer look and make a decision. Since the signs will be relatively small they graphic elements have to be familiar to them. So I kept to simple elements and few words.

We will buy pre-painted wood trim boards at the Home Depot, cut them into two foot lengths, then paint the graphics on each board using my art projector to keep things neat. These individual signs will hang in a chain to make a bigger sign and to tell people what we have available.

The produce stand itself will primarily be a trailer which we will re-purpose for the job. Again, the thing must look like a produce stand to those seeing it from a long away. The colors and shapes have to remind the driver of a produce stand the moment it comes into view. We have a good design but describing it in text would be tedious, so I'll put up pictures as soon as we have it under way.

Ann is signing herself up for a Thursday farmer's market at Tuality Hospital. She has quite a following there and we expect it will be a good "warm" market for our produce. We will also put the stand out on the highway as the Summer gets nearer too. Probably just on Saturdays this year. The rest of the time the stand will be by our front gate where we hope to attract people to come off of the Banks-Vernonia Trail.