Start with the market you want to serve.

Share your intended crop and market with Intaba. Whether you supply a local market, a retailer or another buyer, their requirements should be part of your variety discussion.

Tell us whether you grow in open fields or under protection, how you source water and whether you raise seedlings yourself or use a nursery. Bring questions about the practical support your crop will need.

Discuss the intended sowing, transplanting and harvesting sequence with an agronomist. Timing depends on your variety and conditions; a generic calendar cannot replace advice for your farm.

Record the variety, batch details, planting dates and the field or tunnel where you planted. This gives you and your agronomist a clearer record when reviewing the crop.

A market trader, a supermarket, a processor, an institution or your own retail. Each wants something different from the same vegetable. Write down who you expect to sell to before you look at a single variety.

Size, shape, colour, uniformity, shelf life and how the crop must be packed. If you have sold to this buyer before, note what they rejected and why. Rejections tell you more about variety choice than a catalogue does.

Note the weeks you want to be harvesting and selling. Working backwards from the market is a very different exercise from planting when it suits you and hoping the price holds.

How much can that buyer take, how often, and for how long. Planting more than your market can absorb is one of the most expensive mistakes in vegetable production.

Open field, tunnel, shade net or a mix. Note your irrigation, your bed preparation and your spacing. Ask which varieties the team has seen perform in that system locally rather than in general.

Whether you raise your own seedlings or buy them in, and what your transplanting capacity is in a week. Seed count per pack only makes sense against this.

Vegetables are labour-hungry at specific moments. Be clear about who does the harvesting and grading, and how many hands you can get at peak. This shapes how much you should plant at once.

Ask the team how growers in your area stagger plantings to spread harvest and price risk. Bring your planned dates so the conversation is about your calendar.

Vegetable varieties often have similar names and very different characteristics. Confirm the full variety name and the brand with Intaba before ordering.

Professional vegetable seed is sold by seed count, not weight. Work out how many seeds your planting plan needs, allow for nursery losses, and confirm the pack that matches.

Ask whether the variety is in stock, and what the lead time is if it is not. Plan your nursery dates around the answer rather than around the ideal.

Variety, seed lot, nursery date, transplant date and where each block went. When a buyer asks what you are growing, or a problem appears, this record is what makes the next conversation useful.