Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Small scale farming?

Along with being a new pond owner, I also have 20 acres of land to go with it. I've got a few ideas on some things I want to do such as an orchard and using the large open field for either pasture/hay or small livestock. The land is in pretty bad shape right now and has a huge amount of prickly pear cactus on it that I know I must get rid of before it is fit for use for anything. Anyone have a sure fire method for killing the stuff?

I mapped out my plans on a Google earth image which is posted below. We just purchased a MF1233 compact 4wd tractor with the front end loader and a box blade. We have a 5 ft bush hog attachment coming Monday. The tractor itself is probably not heavy enough for any real farming and we would like to try to get by without buying $20,000 in attachments. I'm sure there are some essentials that we need and would love to know what they are so that I can look out for them at the farm auction. Please share your knowledge.

I'd welcome any advice/ideas any of you can offer on small scale farming. I've marked the future site of our house and barn on the photo as well to give you an idea of the lay of the land. The area around the house and pond are primarily mature hardwoods, mostly water oaks.

Thanks for the help!

If you can, pick up the book 5 Acres and Independence by M.G.Kains. It should give you a decent starting point on what works well on a small farm. Prickly pear makes good jelly, too.

Auburn and UA should both have ag websites that will give you tons of information about what will work for your area.

Here in sw Missouri, "You Pick" high value crops like blueberries and strawberries do well. Also if you have a farmers market in the area, visit it and see what folks that go there are buying.

To extend J3's thought, have you priced prickly pears lately at an upscale supermarket?

Here's my small scale farming advice:
1. If you want to make money find a niche market crop you can grow and sell dearly.
2. You better enjoy hard work.
3. You will never get bored by running out of things to do.
4. Get a good, gutsy accountant who stays current on ag tax law.
5. Take every legal break you can - farming our land instead of just sitting on it saves us beau coup bucks every year in property taxes. In Ohio, this is called CAUV (Calculated Actual Use Value) - we get taxed as farmland, not as potential McMansion subdivision land.

Might have another source of income as well.

The suggestion by Mobass is a good one, get to know your market, what sells and who buys. What is the economic situation in LA?

If you have never farmed before, as I had not, you will be in for a mix of surprises, good, bad and plain amazing.

Good luck

Farming is a lot of fun. If you want to really pray for rain, no freezes, a cheaper bug killer, etc; you'll love farming.

Oh yeah, you'll love the tax write offs. The tax write ons are a little harder to come by.

Unless you make hay, then you get to pray for no rain as well.


To paraphrase Bruce Condello, engineering makes up 105% of my income and the farm accounts for the rest.

Any large AG operators in the area that you could lease the land to. This way you get the property tax breaks for AG land and a little income from the rent money. I rent 30 acres of my place and it pays (somewhat) for the deer and turkey food plots I put in. But I am in the midwest and we get $150 - $200+ an acre for rent around here. This way you get some income and could still do the orchard.

Hay equipment is not cheap and, from what I have heard, can require a lot of maintenance. I'm not sure the time and effort would be worth it for you for that size field. I recently cleared 6-7 acres of my property and considered haying it. After factoring in the equipment costs, know how and luck required I decided against doing it myself. There is an Amish farmer who lives down the road who is going to do it for me and we are going to split the hay 50-50. My land, his equipment and knowledge.

http://www.dowagro.com/webapps/lit/litorder.asp?filepath=range/pdfs/noreg/010-56686.pdf&pdf=true

For control of cactus

We are small scale farmers (actually my wife really is now-a-days) which probaly qualifies us as certified loonies. We now farm about 1 acre of our 73 acre farm in high-intensity vegetables that my wife and two kids sell at local farmers markets (30 to 40 miles away). We also have about 20,000 Christmas trees that we (mostly my wife) planted with a planting bar over the last 18 years. A couple tid bits; my wife and I have ag degrees and I work outside of the home. This is good, since it helped when she had a sequence of surgeries on both shoulders (rotator cuff) and I had my three knee surgeries (the last one 5 days ago). Small scale farming is very hard physical work unless you hire others to do it. For the last 5 years we have hired local kids to pick tomatoes, and our kids are a big help also (they work as they want to and are payed - easiest way to drive kids off the farm is to use them as slaves). We rented out 40 acres for about 10 years but stopped doing it so we could develop wildlife habitat and enjoy the land. Maybe I'm funny, but I get minimal satisfaction from gazing across a bean or corn field. If you love farming, no one can discourage you, but go in with eyes wide open and have a second job to support your habit, and as others have said, know your market! We'll have some pretty nice spruce forests when all the unsold Christmas trees grow larger. We made money, but over-planted. Good luck! Small-scale farming can be very satisfying.

WOW! I never expected so many replies. Thanks for all the good advice and the heavy warnings.

I'm not afraid of hard work. Heck, I load and unload about 10,000 pounds of freight each month at the store. For a girl I'm pretty strong and not afraid to pick up a tool and get the job done.

My post was probably a little inaccurate. The small scale farming is more for self reliance than for profit. A lot of the orchard is going to be nut trees with a small mixture of fruits for canning. We want a garden to provide vegetables too.

As far as livestock, my idea is a few goats, a couple of sheep and maybe the occasional steer. Maybe a milk goat if I can find the time and some fowl.

Right now I am buying sheep, goats and goats milk through the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program from local farmers who buy locally grown feed. Most of these are resold through my store or are used to feed my own dogs. At least I know what the animals were fed and where they come from. I also go out to local U-Pick farms and get all my veggies. I try hard to keep my money working in my own community whenever possible.

Having clarified what I am trying to do can you suggest some tools or other items that are a must to have? Maybe some things to avoid and any other sage advice gained through the oops factor?

I've talked to the extension agent and we also have a farm number through the USDA. Neither agency has been a lot of help unless of course I want money or to plant pine trees, which I don't.

Thanks!

That looks great!

Don't know much about the climate in your neck of the woods. I suspect it is a bit different than the mid-Atlantic states... If you have enough frost days, you should be able to grow most northern fruit and nut trees, but should also be able to take advantage of your longer growing season to grow many more southern species and cultivars.

I am definitely with you Anna. I would like to grow much of my own food one day.

One of my dad's friends is amazing. He grows and raises about 95% of his food. His wife, 3 kids and their families live on 330 acres at the end of a 6 mile dirt road in the mountains of VA. It is about as remote as you can get in the east. They raise goats, sheep, pigs, cows, chickens, ducks and even turkeys along with fish. They have several bee hives as well. They have about 10 acres in orchards and 20 acres in pasture and another 20 in crops. They dry and can everything they cannot freeze. They have a dug out area they call the "root cellar" which is more like a root bunker for winter storage of potatoes, onions and the like. Plus they hunt for wild game.

The community is completely off the grid as well. With solar, wind and water power all their electricity is produced on site. Then again, they are kind of on the fringe and think the USA is about to come unraveled. Should they be right, they're going to be far more prepared than I am. MRE's only last so long!

I beleive your tractor is in the 27hp range right? With that I would get a 50" reverse tine tiller to work up the garden and a post hole digger for planting the trees and fense work. Land Pride makes both of these and are real heavy duty. These two shouldn't set you back more then $3300. You are going to need a sprayer for the orchard but could get by with a back pack one. Not sure if you want to plant the pasture yourself or not. The 50" tiller will work it up good but will take a while, but this should only be needed to be done once.

We come at small scale farming from a different angle. If the USA comes unravelled, I think that the 2 legged varmints will be the biggest challenge and we will head into the deep north if we can get there. As far as subsistance farming, most gave this up (along with the common nutritional diseases that accompanied it) with the advent of good transprtation. On our farm, we specialize in what we can grow most efficiently with high quality and use that new fangled stuff we get in exchange (money)to purchace what others grow more efficiently than we can. However, I am all for the buy local fad as we can sell more at higher prices at the farmers markets. Don't get me wrong, we buy lots of local food when the quality is higher and the price is competitive, but we don't think of it as a spiritual thing or some moral choice. Its just good ole common sense (which, by the way, doesn't seem to be as common as used to). Growing supplimentary food for the family can be a lot of fun, but its just a hobby unless you can't get a job.

RAH has it right. Grow what is best for your area and sell the excess to pay for the essentials that others can grow cheaper. I do the same thing with wood and woodworking. A small cedar shelf or unique piece of wood harvested from our land pays for the treated lumber and plywood I need. I have paid for all of my equipment this way, including the sawmill. I have done the same with jelly in the past. Collect all the muscadine grapes I can off the local roads and sell the jelly at the local farmers market.

Anna:

Before you plant anything, I'd get the soil tested. That way you can find out if you need to adjust the pH. It's useless to apply fertilizer unless the pH is correct, then you can fertilize for what you are trying to grow. It took me 3 years to get the pH here to 6.5-7.5.

For planting a garden, get one of these:
Planter
Get the seed plate kit and it will save you many hours of planting by hand.