Learning to run a business is confusing

Starting my own business has been exciting and confusing for me. I am making and selling homemade body products. I make my products with natural oils, beeswax and wild plants and herbs that I grow in my garden. Making products with nature I feel that I am opening up another part of my brain, besides doing the chemistry involved with making the products. I am really proud of my healing salve that I make with five different plants. People that have bought the healing salve are stopping back to tell me how well it has worked for them. Another product I make is a thick calendula flower lotion. It has repaired sun damage on my face. I am amazed constantly by the healing properties of the plants. Today I made a new lotion out of comfrey root, bergamot, red clover and ginger. It is totally green in color and mells earthy. It would make a good lubricant for those who have dryness in private areas. I am not sure how to go about marketing this cream. But many people buy K-Y jelly and this lotion will do the same as that does. I will have to think about how I will sell this speak about the healing properties of this lotion.

It has been so cold this summer. The tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers are not ripening. Tomatoes are being sold for a dollar a piece at the farmer’s markets. I had a man suggest that my tomatoes came from the grocery store yesterday. I could only find six ripe tomatoes to sell
yesterday. This man was pretty ornery. My six tomatoes were not pretty and they had some dark spots on them but I know that they tasted good. Besides, Farmer John, a vendor who has been at the market for years says that tomatoes are not purchased to be looked at, but to be eaten.

I said to the ornery man, "If I was going to sell tomatoes I bought at the grocery store, they would look better than these."

The ornery man left my stand and walked around to look at several other vendors’ tomatoes and came back to me and said, "The rest of these sellers’ tomatoes are from the grocery store. Their tomatoes are hard to the touch, while your tomatoes are softer to the touch. You are the only one with home grown tomatoes."

This is not true, because the vendors are very honest and they do grow all the produce that shows up at the farmer’s markets. I told him that my tomatoes were seventy cents apiece and he said no way. I asked him what he would pay for them. I asked for such a small price, as I don’t sell much produce. I only have a little amount and most people that come to the
farmer’s markets go back to the same vendors week after week.

"How about thirty cents a piece," he offered.

I was angry for even talking to this insulting man. I knew my tomatoes were worth more, but this particular farmer’s market is the one I make the least amount of money at.

"No, that won’t pay for my time driving down here. I am insulted by that offer. I will take forty cents a piece," I said.

This was way too low a price to ask, and he argued with me over that low price. He did buy two tomatoes. I won’t sell them so cheap next time. I am learning. I went out to look at my tomatoes today. I am going to a farmer’s market this afternoon. The tomatoes are ripening so slowly. My cabbage, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, turnips and greens look good. These are not big sellers, but they are good to eat. Brrr. It is cold.

Abundance Surrounds Me

Abundance. That is the word that goes through my head every time I am outside in my garden or walking or driving down the roads. We have so much abundance in this part of the world and few of us know how to use it. I have not written for a couple of weeks as I have been making body products with flowers and plants that I gather from my farm and from local meadows. I have been selling my products at the Austin Farmer’s Market, the Blooming Prairie Farmer’s Market, and last week I went to the Owatonna Farmer’s Market. I am having a great time being outdoors and smelling all the wonder scents. I first started out making a healing salve for cuts, abrasions and rashes out of calendula, comfrey, strawberry leaves, plantain and mallow. I infuse the plants in olive oil and then add melted beeswax to make the salve. My brother Tim showed me how to make this salve over ten years ago. I have made it every year and this year I decided to start marketing it. Since I started to make the salve, I have expanded my products and make a calendula face cream and also a cream for the body made with chickweed. Last week I started to gather bergamot flowers as I love the smell of them and I infused them with canola oil and am now making a shaving cream out of them. It smells great. I have been walking around the past 29 years identifying the wild plants in my area and learning their healing products. I have always used them for my family. I continue to be amazed at the pharmacy of plants that is right outside my front door. I have used the wild plants medicinally for my family for years and now I have decided to use this knowledge to make wonderful natural products with the abundance that surrounds me. My house smells wonderful with all the different infused flower mixtures. Since I started to create my body products, I keep thinking of new products to make. It is such fun and the products are so fresh and they work great. I call my new venture, Sheila’s Pasture Herbs.

Today on my list for a new product is I am going to gather sage, bergamot and chamomile flowers to make an aftershave for men and I will mix the plants with vodka and witch hazel.
The other day at the Farmer’s Market in Austin, a woman asked me if there would be anything worthwhile to gather from a meadow that has remained untouched near her parent’s homestead for the past twenty years and if I could name any plants that are possibly there. I didn’t know where to begin, as there is so many different plants to name that are most surely in that meadow that most people don’t know how to use.

My favorite plant right now to use is the lowly chickweed. It grows low to the ground and spreads like a tangled carpet. It has tiny flowers and it tastes like sweet corn when eaten raw. My neighbor uses it to control her fibromyalgia. She takes it in capsules. I am using it to make a cream that diminishes cellulite. It is a light cream with a green tinge that is cooling and absorbs into the skin wham bam. I call my new concoction, Chick Cream. I will see how my new business venture goes. Right now my main problem is trying to figure out the software for making labels for my products. I really believe in what I am doing and Mother Nature and the plants are telling me how to make use of the abundance that is all around me.