Dody BushVeggie Grower for the Farmers Market
August 8th 2008 00:43
Food prices are at all time highs, while fertilizers are too. But having a small plot and an arm full of organic gardening books can lead to a debt free healthy future. I have been an organic gardener for years. Growing vegetable with out fertilizer is easy. So is growing veggies with out pesticides of the traditional sort. If your new to gardening I suggest "How to grow more vegetables" by Joan Jeavons. I further suggest reading Four Season Harvest so that you can have year round income.
However, with out reading this I will give you the over view. Depending on if you collect your own fertilizer through composting and dried up lake beds or not, start up for one acer will cost $100 to $300. The point is to focus on high dollar local favorites, with a twist. For example, rare cucumbers might be a good gamble a long with tasty rare tomatoes. However, rare potatoes might be hard to sell for more than the ones in the store, even if they are purple or red. As a business person, you need to look at which items make the most. For vegetables that are easy and worth the time invested I always suggest tomatoes, cucumbers, and green beans. Other items you might find a good market for depending on your local agriculture might be melons, fruit from trees, nuts, and squash.
To make agriculture a year round affair, I suggest starting out with a little more than an acre. Lets say you had 5 acres of planting land. I would plant 1 acre with pine trees only. Then one acre for nut trees and rare fruit trees. The pine trees would be for Christmas tree cutting. The nuts and the fruits for selling at the farmers market. I would also plant one acer with pumpkins, watermelons, and winter squash. Then one acer would be for dent corn, to feed my chickens and my family, since I would have the "Easter egg" chickens to sell the rare eggs at the farmers market. The last acre would be for veggies. I would rotate the corn, melon/pumpkin, and veggie patch every year and put "green" manure down every year. I would also probably have a goat or something to keep the fields clean in between growths, so I didn't need a lawn mower.
Sound doable? Well, it is. We have most of this already in place. Although we currently don't do it for profit, we could in a pinch. The only thing I would add to this scenario with more acreage, is 1 acre for berry bushes and one for the goat pasture. With less than ten acres you have a self feeding system to grow food and make a business. If the last three are for wood, you can even heat your house for free.
How do I know this stuff? Well, I live it. Although we aren't this self sufficient yet, we are pretty close. We have the land, the water, the acreage, the chickens, even the lay out for veggies and fruit trees. The rest we are working on. Again this is much bigger than a one acre market garden, but on one acer you can make a living and BUILD like we are. We wouldn't have gotten his far with out that tiny market garden, that gave us our push into agriculture. Prices are even better than they were when we started, you should catch up in no time.
However, with out reading this I will give you the over view. Depending on if you collect your own fertilizer through composting and dried up lake beds or not, start up for one acer will cost $100 to $300. The point is to focus on high dollar local favorites, with a twist. For example, rare cucumbers might be a good gamble a long with tasty rare tomatoes. However, rare potatoes might be hard to sell for more than the ones in the store, even if they are purple or red. As a business person, you need to look at which items make the most. For vegetables that are easy and worth the time invested I always suggest tomatoes, cucumbers, and green beans. Other items you might find a good market for depending on your local agriculture might be melons, fruit from trees, nuts, and squash.
To make agriculture a year round affair, I suggest starting out with a little more than an acre. Lets say you had 5 acres of planting land. I would plant 1 acre with pine trees only. Then one acre for nut trees and rare fruit trees. The pine trees would be for Christmas tree cutting. The nuts and the fruits for selling at the farmers market. I would also plant one acer with pumpkins, watermelons, and winter squash. Then one acer would be for dent corn, to feed my chickens and my family, since I would have the "Easter egg" chickens to sell the rare eggs at the farmers market. The last acre would be for veggies. I would rotate the corn, melon/pumpkin, and veggie patch every year and put "green" manure down every year. I would also probably have a goat or something to keep the fields clean in between growths, so I didn't need a lawn mower.
Sound doable? Well, it is. We have most of this already in place. Although we currently don't do it for profit, we could in a pinch. The only thing I would add to this scenario with more acreage, is 1 acre for berry bushes and one for the goat pasture. With less than ten acres you have a self feeding system to grow food and make a business. If the last three are for wood, you can even heat your house for free.
How do I know this stuff? Well, I live it. Although we aren't this self sufficient yet, we are pretty close. We have the land, the water, the acreage, the chickens, even the lay out for veggies and fruit trees. The rest we are working on. Again this is much bigger than a one acre market garden, but on one acer you can make a living and BUILD like we are. We wouldn't have gotten his far with out that tiny market garden, that gave us our push into agriculture. Prices are even better than they were when we started, you should catch up in no time.
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