Business Ideas | Small Business Ideas: How to Farm Pumpkins For Business

Saturday, November 23, 2013

How to Farm Pumpkins For Business | Pumpkin Farming Business

Start a pumpkin farm to grow and harvest pumpkins during the autumn months. Farms often allow customers to pick their own pumpkins for decorating or to use to make comfort foods, including hearty soups and flavorful pies. Plant pumpkin seeds in the late spring or early summer, depending on the climate where your farm is located, so pumpkins can be harvested close to Halloween.

Step 1

Register your pumpkin farm business with the county clerk's office if forming a sole proprietorship, and the secretary of state's office if forming a corporation, partnership or limited liability company. Apply for an Employer Identification Number, or EIN, to use on all business, tax, banking and other documents through the Internal Revenue Service. Apply for a sales tax number through the department of revenue to collect sales tax from customers.

Step 2

Contact your state's department of agriculture to apply for a license or permit to sell fresh produce. In Texas, for example, you must apply for a license to sell fresh fruits and vegetables to customers, retailers and wholesale vendors. You must renew this license yearly with the Texas Department of Agriculture.

Step 3

Lease or purchase farm land to grow pumpkins. The amount of land needed depends on the number of pumpkins you plan to grow and the types of growing techniques you plan on using. If planting pumpkin vines, you need to create a series of 50- to 100-foot-wide mounds with approximately 5 to 6 feet between each mound. Each mound typically yields four to five pumpkins. If planting pumpkin bushes, you need to plant rows of pumpkin seeds, leaving approximately 3 feet between seeds and up to 8 feet between rows. Contact a commercial real estate agent to help find farm land large enough to grow pumpkins. Your farm should be easy for customers to find and include an area for parking.

Step 4

Purchase pumpkin seeds and farming equipment such as a small tractor, digging and planting tools, an irrigation or sprinkler system and insecticide. Build an outdoor structure to create a place to greet customers, hand out pumpkin baskets, provide snacks and drinks, and sell pumpkins.

Step 5

Advertise your pumpkin farm a month or two before the crop is ready for picking. Post fliers in high-traffic areas such as grocery stores, parks and community centers. Place ads in local newspapers or tourist magazines or purchase ad space on the radio or television. Create a Facebook page or a website that includes directions, pricing information and a description of the farm.

Tips

Hand out maps of the farm to customers outlining the types of pumpkins and where they're located.
Provide additional activities such as scavenger hunts, mazes or haunted houses to attract more customers.

Warning

Purchase business insurance to cover the costs associated with an accident or injury to customers, employees and others on your property. Coverage should include liability, commercial property, workers' compensation and farm equipment.

Things to remember in pumpkin farms

Remember that pumpkins need to be harvested before the first hard frost otherwise the frost will kill the vines and also destroy the pumpkins. It is also important that you provide a complete fence around the farm or else the wild animals will not spare your farm and of course the pumpkins. So you need to save your farm from such animals. The other thing is to give attention to the pests and diseases of the plants so keep spreading pesticides in the farm as and when the requirement comes.

Every week a growing pumpkin will be requiring one to two inches of rainfall, lack of water can prove disastrous for your crops. Make certain that there is an effective water supply in your farm. You also need to regularly apply fertilisers to your farm but try not to over fertilise the farm as it may be harmful.

Proper Checking of the Soil and Climate is Required

The first step should be to check the soil quality and the ph value of the soil. It should be somewhere around 6.0 to 6.8 ph value. Pumpkins need a very rich soil that is capable of draining. Further when you choose the farm land keep in view that it must be able to get a large amount of sunlight, pumpkins require extensive sunlight or else they may not be able to grow properly. For proper growth they require the perfect combination of manure and compost, so you need to be careful with that. Pumpkins require a large number of nutrients in the soil. You can start sowing the pumpkin seeds somewhere in mid- May and try to see that the temperature remains fairly warm all throughout or else the growth might be retarded.

Pumpkins are known to spread far and wide; their roots may spread to as much as 15 feet in all directions. Make sure when farming your pumpkins that you have to prevent them from chilly winds so never try to farm pumpkins in areas of excessive cold. But if you intend to use farm them in chilly areas then you will have to use cloches and floating row covers to protect the plants from winter.

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About the Author

Based in the Washington metro area, Jessica Jones has been a freelance writer since 2006, specializing in business topics. Her fiction has also been featured in publications such as "The Jamaican Observer Sunday Literary Supplement" and at websites including HackWriters. Jones earned a Master of Fine Arts in fiction writing from Lesley University.

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Easy Tips and Ideas to Start Business

Although anyone can start a business, many people fail because of a bad product or improper research. If you want to start your own business, you can improve your chances for success before you even begin. In order to make your business successful, start strong and make sure that your idea will hold out for the long haul.

Have a Good Product

Ensure that you plan to sell something useful. Although you may think that your product is important or special, that doesn't mean the general public will agree. Ask friends, family and strangers what they think of your product. If they don't seem that interested, ask them why. With their suggestions, you can either improve the product or scrap the idea completely. According to Brad Sugars of Entrepreneur magazine, most small businesses fail because they sold a product that didn't have an adequate market. This also applies to small businesses that provide a service. A lawn-care business might be useful for part of the year in a northern state, but it is in-demand year-round in the south. Consider whether people will actually want to use your service and get constructive advice from those not afraid to give their opinion.

Research Local Businesses

Research local companies before starting up your own business. This will not only give you an idea of the amount of competition you will have, but it will also help you price your product or service. If you're looking to start a wedding photography business, you may find during your research that the market is over-saturated in your area. If not over-saturated, you should contact each business and ask them for a price list. Alter your prices so you can stay competitive with the competition in town. Researching similar local businesses will also help you decide where to locate your business location. Try not to start up a store or office close to another business of your type. If your small business is located away from similar business types, this will cause locals to choose you over businesses that are farther away from where they live.

Get Professional Advice

You may know someone who has started their own successful business. Ask him for advice and listen to his stories of how he started his company. You may gain useful advice on the good and bad ways to start a business. Local entrepreneurs can also introduce you to local product providers or advertisers that you may not have met without their help. Accept any advice with open arms, especially if the advice is coming from someone successful in the area.

How to Calculate Business Start Up Costs

Starting a business in no easy endeavor. It takes a great deal of research, perseverance and hard work. While sweat equity will make your small business more successful, you will most likely need real capital to get the business started. Before you start raising capital and/or investing your own funds, the first thing you need to do is determine the total start-up costs.

Step 1

Determine your costs of sales. For most small businesses this means inventory, the cost of raw materials, manufacturing equipment, shipping, packaging, and warehousing. However, not all businesses sell products. In this case, the cost of sales is primarily the direct labor involved in making the sale. For example, to open a small shoe business entails purchasing enough inventory ($10,000) to stock the store.

Step 2

Determine professional fees. Planning your business structure, i.e., limited liability corporation or general partnership, means hiring an attorney. There may also be the need to pay an attorney for help with establishing trademarks, copyrights, and patents. In this scenario, that puts total professional fees at an estimated $20,000.

Step 3

Determine technology costs. Technology can greatly reduce the cost of labor for small business if used effectively. Most small businesses require computers, printers, cell phones, website development, Internet access, software applications, information security, data storage, and outsourced information technology (IT) consulting. If the cost of technology is $10,000 to start, add an additional $5,000 a year for maintenance (hint: maintenance is not included in start-up costs).

Step 4

Determine administrative costs. This varies with business types and may include items such as business insurance, office supplies, product packaging, parking, rent, express shipping, desks, chairs, fax machines, phones, or anything else necessary to operate the business daily. A good estimate for start-up administrative costs would be $5,000 for the first six months.

Step 5

Determine initial sales and marketing costs. Now that you have your product, you need to let folks know about it. Sales and marketing costs generally include marketing materials for presentations, printing stationery, business cards, advertising, trade show events, and public relations. These initial sales and marketing costs can add up to $3,000.

Step 6

Determine the wages and benefits needed to secure a staff. This includes employee salaries, benefits, workers compensation, and payroll taxes. Let's put the cost of wages and benefits estimated at $20,000 for the first three months of business.

Step 7

Add all costs associated with starting the business for a total. Be sure to only include business start-up costs that will be incurred in the first three to six months of operations. For this example, the calculation is: $10,000 + $20,000 + $10,000 + $5,000 + $3,000 + $20,000 = $68,000.

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