| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Lauram |
Posted - Sep 20 2005 : 04:54:47 AM
Hi there. My husband and I bought five acres of farmland and are breaking ground this winter on our house. This lady bought several acres of farmland and divided it up into several large plots of 5 acres minimum to create a small gated community of "mini farms" she said. Only 11 lots total. It's legally zoned farm land (I have the only barn on the property, lucky me!) but I hope I'm not the only one who wants to farm it.
Anyway, my husband works full-time and I am a stay-at-home mom. I have always wanted to farm, although never thought it was possible. People are always telling me it is too difficult but I'm going to ignore them. I am going to grow vegetables, flowers, and plant a mini-orchard on our land. Eventually I would like to sell my harvest to local places to sell. I am 34 years old with a 10 month old. We are going to start trying for another baby next month. My goal is by the time I'm 40 I will have enough experience and good enough crops to sell my harvest. I'm trying to be realistic understanding what it takes to be a mother of infants/toddlers! We plan on building a greenhouse in a couple of years so I can start my own seedlings too.
Anyway, if anyone has any advice or thoughts about how I should approach this, that would be great!
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| 7 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Lauram |
Posted - Sep 22 2005 : 07:33:26 AM
Thank you so much for such wonderful advice everyone! I'm for sure going to use the suggestions posted. |
| amystew |
Posted - Sep 20 2005 : 9:12:11 PM
I've given up on sunshine--I heard we've got a cold front coming in. Sigh. It's been an awfully chilly summer. Greetings from all the way over in Eureka!
Gardener, chicken lover, worm wrangler
http://humboldthens.blogspot.com |
| sqrl |
Posted - Sep 20 2005 : 2:03:54 PM
Amy, I'm in Arcata, How ya lovin fog? I'm SO ready for a little sunshine.
Blessed Be
www.sqrlbee.com www.sisterhood.sqrlbee.com
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| amystew |
Posted - Sep 20 2005 : 10:21:31 AM
Once you get a good variety of crops going, have you considered a CSA? (Community supported agriculture) Just do a Google search and you'll find plenty of information.
Of course, it's a lot of work to keep the weekly basket reliably full of produce and flowers people want, but a lot of people (myself included) like the idea of having a "stake" in somebody's farm and sharing the risk with the farmer. If the lettuce crop fails, you don't get lettuce, but if it's unusually abundant, you get extra. Also, I like knowing that I am giving the farmer money at the beginning of the season, when they need it most, rather than making them wait until harvest time.
Maybe if you're not ready to leap into a full scale CSA, you have a few friends who would be willing to "invest" by paying at the beginning of the season for a pre-defined amount of food delivered once a month or at some more manageable interval. Some combination of cut flowers, eggs, fruit, veggies, herbs would be fun to get even if they only came now and then throughout the season. Your friends & supporters are likely to be a bit more patient if things are irregular at first, especially if they know what to expect.
And I loved getting a little newsletter from one CSA I belonged to--just an e-mail to tell me how the crops are doing and how much care and attention they put into their farm. It made me feel like I was a part of it.
Another idea about what crops to plant--I find that it's nice to have some things in my own garden that store a little longer: potatoes, beets, winter squash, apples, etc.--to round out those times when there's nothing else coming ripe. Maybe the same is true for small-scale farming, too. The same might be true for flowers--dried lavender, feverfew, stattice, etc for the times when the fresh flowers are a bit more scarce.
Good luck--it sounds wonderful to me--
Amy
Gardener, chicken lover, worm wrangler
http://humboldthens.blogspot.com |
| DaisyFarm |
Posted - Sep 20 2005 : 09:45:16 AM
Some great advice from Mary Ann, but I'll tell you how my little farm works too. We do raise chickens for eggs and while you can certainly buy them cheaper at the grocery store, few folks want the cheap eggs and will pay a premium for free range, organically fed. I charge $3.00/dozen. My girls don't generate a huge profit by any means, but they do pay for themselves, are little work, and when all is said and done, our eggs are free and healthy. I put up an egg sign at the top of our driveway and somedays can't keep up with the demand...once folks try them they don't want store bought (especially when you gently tell them that cheap eggs are from hens that never see sunshine and are fed cheap feed that contains feather meal).
As for your garden, the opposite is true (for me) from Mary Ann's experiences. I find folks want standard familiar veggies. I sell tons of big beef tomatoes and the yellow ones and grape cherry are still on the vine. I've grown fennel, radaccio, arugula, etc. and it sells poorly. I can sell truckloads of beets, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots etc. I do advertise organic growing methods and that is a huge attraction to most of my customers. Just be prepared for folks to question you on it lol.
Berries are another huge seller and I always have to put aside some for myself that are not for sale! Strawberries are easy...they are in long rows with grassy paths between, planted in raised mounds covered with landscape fabric. It's a pain to set up, but pretty much maintenance free when you're done. Raspberries are u-pick and I just lined the south fence of my garden with them. They too are pretty much maintenance free...just toss on some well-rotted manure in the fall and cut out the old canes. I do have two fence posts on either end of the row with a wire running down the center to tie the canes too...it keeps them a little neater.
I have made a series of 4" x 15" signs that advertise what I have for sale that hang at the top of the driveway. The signs have cuphooks on the tops and bottoms so that I can slip on which ever sign I need to advertise what's available..eggs, berries, flowers, produce.
I prepick nothing except maybe a couple pints of strawberries to sit on my table for impulse buying. I print a little flyer on my computer and when new folks come they can look at what I have available and then just tell me what they want and I go get it for them. Most love it and I have some that like to pick their own (which I like even more!!). I also make assorted jams and jellies throughout the season and advertise them in my little flyer as well.
This is our fifth year on this little farm and my second year opening up to the public. I love all the wonderful folks I meet and it sure didn't take long for our farm name to get around. I try to only sell the best of what I produce (I end up with some weird stuff for our own table!), but do remind people sometimes that I grow food and not art.
I wish you all the best in your endeavor. Start out small with maybe your perennial plants so you don't get totally overwhelmed. You need to enjoy your new lifestyle. It is very gratifying.
Diane
Live a good and honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time. |
| theherblady |
Posted - Sep 20 2005 : 07:49:12 AM
Congrats on you new farm Laura~~
And what good advise Mary Ann!
We bought our place last Dec and I tried to do as much as I could this year..Your advise gives me some good ideas for next year~~
Jan |
| Horseyrider |
Posted - Sep 20 2005 : 07:16:59 AM
Congratulations on your acquisition! Yes, I do have some advice for you.
When you choose your varieties for planting, try and find some way of setting yourself apart from the rest of the market. If there are no other truck gardeners in the area you're safer, but you'll do better in the long run if you garden organically (an edge over most grocery store produce) or grow varieties not found in the supermarket. You could specialize in heirloom varieties, and include stories as to why they're special at your stand (such as Moon and Stars watermelon, with their pretty patterns on the rind). And the good news is you can save your own seed, too, to either plant next year or sell. Seed stored in canning jars in the freezer retain almost 100% of their germination capacity.
When I go to the farmer's market, I'm far more willing to buy more if people have something besides the usual tomatoes and potatoes. How about some garlic, some fresh herbs, some dainty little bottles of olive oil infused with your herbs for dipping, some unusual varieties of tomatoes like low acid or yellow, flowers that florists never sell like zinnias, echinacea, cosmos, etc. Grow unusual peppers, fraise des bois (the tiny, ultra flavorful strawberry), radiccio, chocolate peppers, purple green beans displayed with yellow wax, and apples that are so thin skinned and deluxe they couldn't be shipped. Go for the unusual; that will mean added on sales.
Also, you can grow your own from seed without a greenhouse. We used to do all our own with a hotbed and cold frame setup. I'd start seeds in the house under a light, and when they'd germinate and get their first set of true leaves, I'd transfer them to the hotbed. It was basically a south facing box with a grid of heat tape run underneath that used a thermostat to keep the seedlings comfy, regardless of the weather. The lids were old windows from an addition to my house that was changed in the fifties and the farmer kept; we put handles on them and could lift them up and prop them open if it got too warm. Then they'd be transferred to the cold frame to harden off and prepare for planting. We grew many varieties of peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, flowers, herbs, beans, etc, all out of our hotbed and coldframe.
With little ones, I'd also suggest planting according to the biodynamic/French intensive method, usind sod paths in between your rows. We did this, and it was easy to access the crops and stay clean. You can teach your kids to stay on the grass. Have lots of toys outside with you, and don't come apart if your kid gets dirty.
You could possibly pool with your neighbors to buy things like tractors and tillers, but I'd recommend against it. It gets hard when everybody wants the same piece of equipment at once, and then somebody doesn't get to turn over their ground before the rains come. Also, if something breaks, who pays? It can cause more bad feelings than it's worth. I wholeheartedly recommend a walk behind tiller like TroyBilt makes. Super easy to operate, and can be used for cultivating.
You can also do eggs, but they're a very low profit item. Aracaunas (the ones with the naturally colored eggs) or brown egg breeds might sell better than the whites, and might be nice if you have extras beyond your own use.
Be very hard nosed about the economics of it. The chickens are a perfect example. I used to have chickens years ago, when I remade a stall in the barn for them. We sealed up every little hole with chicken wire, and had Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rocks. We had far more eggs than we could ever eat, and they were so fresh they'd stand up really high in the skillet. Excess birds would go in the freezer. Once in a while, coons would find a way in and kill just about every single one, and we'd have to start over. We quit having chickens in the barn when the horses started having respiratory problems from the dust. Now, I'd love to have them again; but on my place that means building a little chicken house. You can easily use one of those shed kits available at Lowe's and Home Depot. They go up easy, and run around $1500, and for the chicken wire for the run, the electricity going out, the heaters, feed pans, chicks and starter mash, it'd round it out to an even $2K. Now, I can buy a dozen eggs at Walmart for eighty-six cents. If it costs me eighty cents to raise the chicks to producing age and keep them in laying mash, I've only gained about six cents a dozen. It's hard to do all that work for six cents a dozen, and I have $2K tied up in facilities overhead that I can't recover in another use. So for me, I won't do chickens; I'll just lust after other people's flocks. *sigh*
The only way you can beat out the commercial producers and be profitable is to specialize in things that they can't do. Be unique. Don't compete head on with the grocery store; carve out a one of a kind, special place for yourself. |
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