Spring Crops Recap: Missed Opportunities Can Lead to Lessons for Next Year

The spring growing season moves fast, so fast that sometimes, in hindsight, there are opportunities that can be missed. In this year’s Spring Crops Recap survey, one of the questions we asked was “What was the biggest opportunity you missed this year?”

The good news, these missed chances can lead to opportunities for next year. Here’s what some of you had to say:

• “We bought ahead on pots/containers due to supply chain, and now with costs coming down, we are still absorbing and using the higher cost material.”
• “More advertising on social media, no time to do it.”
• “Should have hired labor sooner than I did.”
• “Not having a bigger supply of certain annuals.”
• “We should have had our summer program ready about a week earlier.”
• “Short on blooming baskets.”
• “Sale duration was limited due to weather, but demand was still there.”
• “Cool-season crops not ready in time.”
• “We probably could have raised prices more than we did.”
• “Not having enough mixed containers and monoculture patio type containers.”
• “We had to throw away a lot of vegetable starts early in the season because of cold weather. We should have extended plantings later into the season to compensate for this. Even after adding more vegetable seedings, we still ran out too early.”
• “Mistimed some of our Mother’s Day Hanging baskets, leading to overmaturity and overgrowth too soon.”
• “Dahlias. They did not get spaced soon enough and the quality suffered.”