Produce Box Sales from Milpa/Chaos Garden?

Hello!

My husband and I are starting our farm this year, we've got a lot to learn. I'm a little hesitant of committing to selling at the farmer's market, and was thinking of ways I can shake up the the traditional farm income structure.

One idea is a subscription box we sell direct to customers. I'm not a huge fan of the harvest-share aspect of a CSA, but basically a CSA box. We're thinking we can add value from other produce boxes by providing recipes (not everyone knows how to cook okra) or maybe include a grocery list and meal plan for each week.
This could be a good way to build relationships with customers and make income our first year, with a lower risk and overheads.

We are also floating the idea of a "chaos garden" in addition to our more traditional garden plots. Looking at buying seed from green cover, their warm season milpa harvest mix. Has anyone used this kind of garden for commercial harvest? I've seen numbers that even an "ok" yield could be 4,000 lbs of harvest per acre. It takes weeding and it will be work, but it satisfies my permaculture interests and seems like a good experiment.

We don't need much to survive, and we aren't budgeting to make an income for a while, so anything we make more than zero dollars is great.

Would love to hear anyone's advice, warnings, or otherwise.

I'm curious about this idea of a chaos garden, I'd like to know more.  

The fact that you don't need to make a bunch of money right away, that you have some wiggle room, is going to help as you experiment and see what works for you guys and what doesn't.  Keep us posted here on permies!

Welcome to the forum!

I too, am curious about what a milpa or chaos garden is.

I found this thread though the thread still doesn't answer my question:

https://permies.com/t/52019/permaculture/cold-climate-Milpa

If you want to learn more about milpa in general, this course was very informative to me.

Riona Abhainn wrote:The fact that you don't need to make a bunch of money right away, that you have some wiggle room, is going to help as you experiment and see what works for you guys and what doesn't.  Keep us posted here on permies!

I will keep updated! Glad to find this community. We've been fortunate enough to have land in an insanely fertile place that isn't ours, but we are able to do whatever we want with it. We have 80 acres (about 27 are pasture that's not forested or directly next to the house). We have no rent, we just pay excess utilities if we use the water or electric hookups.

It's an incredible gift, but it's also overwhelming. I feel like a lot of people start small and are able to a work up from their backyard garden. We are totally biting off more than we can chew and I can't wait!!!