Setting Boundaries for Your Market

Farm/Garden Business

This is super important!

Believe it or not setting boundaries for your market farm/garden business will be one of the most difficult things you will do. I found this out when I lost my job and decided to do market farming full time.

When you are “home” full time or even part-time, your friends and especially family find out that you are “working from home” they believe you aren’t really working so you have plenty of time to talk to them, meet for lunch, drop by unannounced, etc. I was 51-years old when I turned our five-acres into a full time market farm business, therefore, my elderly mother and my elderly aunt believed I was now retired and could visit on the telephone for an hour or so, and they would call during my busiest times. Many of my friends and family thought I should be available for doing things with them, after all I was home all the time now. This became a problem that I had to address and quickly if I was going to succeed in making my farm work for me, so I set some boundaries with my family and friends.

I began setting a phone time just for family and friends to contact me. This included exact days and hours they could call unless there was an emergency. Now that sounds harsh, but it made them realize that my time was valuable, and I really did have a business to run, and I was busy, and not retired. I explained to them why I needed to set these boundaries so they could understand why I needed to do so. I also didn’t want to keep my phone tied up in case I had business calls coming in from customers, or other farmers that I later brokered their produce.

You sometimes have to make other people in your life unhappy with you because you must set boundaries for them to honor your wishes. They need to understand they must respect that you are a business owner, and a very busy one at that because market farming/gardening can take many hours of your time, especially if you develop six different streams of income like I did.

The way I worked this out was to first explain that I was not retired. I was developing and running a new business, which means you need to invest a lot of your time into it. Look over your working schedule, see what days and times you can work in a phone call if someone wants to call you to shoot the breeze or chew the fat. Call them during those times if you can, as this shows them that you have set aside a special time for them. Believe me they will respect you for this in the long run.

Once they see you are serious about your business, and you begin building your customer list, they will understand that you aren’t simply trying to blow them off, but demanding RESPECT.

Remember: Knowledge IS Power!