Hey folks,

I'm new to this forum and am hoping to make more posts in in the future - I've caught the fig bug and have a dozen-or-so varieties I'm starting this year. I teach sustainable agriculture and tropical medicine to missionaries at a small organization in Western NC, and have just bought a 9-acre patch of land and will be doing some polyculture; including pomegranates and figs.

My question is this: has anyone sold figs at farmers markets? If so, did you sell a bunch of varieties, or just one or two? Do the figs sell well? Is having a diversity of figs an asset for farmers markets?

I love figs enough to take care of whatever I produce here at the farm, but even so - it's always nice to pay for ones hobby.

Josh

I sell both figs and fig trees at Farmer's Markets.  The majority of people who buy at Farmer's Markets do not have a clue about the different figs.  They may know Celeste, Brown Turkey, and maybe Mission Dried Figs.  I generally separate the figs in pound bunches in individual bags and have Kadota, Verte, and Celeste to offer.  I will bring some LSU Purple and Gold just to try and expand the knowledge in the market.  Last two years I have sold fresh figs for $5-$7lb and generally sell out quickly.  One farmer brought 1 gal cans of figs and could not sell them at $15, people wanted the smaller qty.

In the trees, I bring LSU Gold, LSU Purple, Celeste, and Brown Turkey and sell the Celeste and Brown Turkey in 3gal pots for $20-$25, and the LSU trees for $30-$35.  I always talk about the "Premium" figs and occasionally will sell one.  For some reason, I sell more premium trees from my back yard than I do at the market.

BTW - I don't care what Walmart or Lowe's or Home Depot prices are.

Good luck 

Good info, Danny. Thanks!

Danny,

Thanks for the information - that's extremely encouraging!


Anyone else care to chime in?

I sell fig trees and a few other trees at the Charlotte Regional a Farmer's Market. I only sell what's hardy and easy to care for in my clmate which is Charlotte NC.

Welcome!  I can see you're already headed in the right direction.  I've known a lot of people who sell them in various places.  A lot depends on how scarce figs are.  In OR 5 years ago the people selling figs charged $7/lb and people gathered what they wanted from a bin.  They all scrambled for the hard, unripe ones.  They had an orchard with about 30 varieties but only 2 or 3 types provided enough figs to sell.  Here in KC in poorer areas they'd rather buy 1 gal figs for $15 and a 3 gal for $25 won't sell. Ten mi away in the wealthier part of town a 3 gal, unknown fig tree that the new owners probably didn't have a clue how to care for was $100 and they sold out in minutes.