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Posted on May 22, 2013 @ 03:21:00 PM by Paul Meagher
I finished planting all my potatoes last weekend. I now have 800 lbs of potatoes planted into the hay rows I prepared last fall for planting into this spring. The stakes in the picture below mark where different varieties of potatoes begin and end.
The next step in the growing process involves supplying the plant with all the things it needs to grow. Some of these elements are not under my control (e.g., weather) while others are (e.g, adding additional hay mulch to supply more area for potatoes to grow into). If all goes well, I should have a crop at the end of the season to either sell directly, process into another form, and/or save for next year's seed potatoes. This is my first time planting at a larger scale so for me this year is all about trying things out and seeing whether it is worthwhile to do again next year and at what scale.
The process of growing food might be compared to the process of growing a business. It could be argued that there is a planting stage, a cultivation stage, and a harvesting stage. The planting stage is the stage where you commit to a set of ideas that you think will be viable in the longer term. You decide to commit resources to getting a project underway. The cultivation stage is where you nurture the ideas so that they grow into something that a customer is likely to want. The harvesting stage is where you start supplying customers with the product or service you have nurtured.
Growing vegetables is a nice metaphor for thinking about how to grow a business. It can be used to stimulate thinking about the amount and type of work involved in growing a business.
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