You know what you should do? A "day in a life" video on him so we can really understand how much work he puts in the farm and how it can keep it low cost
When I retired, I bought a hobby farm & had it for 22 years. It kept me young and provided so much food for so many. Asparagus to Zucchini, blueberries to peaches. I loved it.
At almost 65 years and growing gardens most of that time I admire this man and his plan. He is doing it right. I live solo but always raise more than I need so I can give the bounty away. My small plot has my house with some ornamental plants and a veg patch. Grow all from seed to save money. It works!
A similar age to you, trying to be as self sufficient for vegetables as possible. Have a husband and 4 adult kids and want grow enough to feed us all. I also belong to a community food share group. Being able to grow food is one of the most important skill you can have in my opinion. I live in the hills in Western Australia… greetings to all in the USA 😊
@@wendyneylon4377 I'm in WA Australia too, but a little south of Perth, on some land that I'm gardening with same motive as yours, and this vid also.. I'd love to hear about the group you mentioned please. 🙏
@@s-vbee7474 I live in Mundaring, east of Perth. We have a community garden at Glen Forrest in a park, known as the “Train Park”. They hold a food share there on the 3rd Sunday of each month. There is also a seed library in Mundaring and I help with the processing and packaging of seeds. We focus on seeds for food and for pollinators. There may be similar initiatives in your area. Hope you find something ❤️
My grandma lived off the land and had a huge garden. Something I deeply regret is not paying enough attention to how she planted etc. when I visited. It was/is something to be respected.
@@jonestraloma I’ve had quite a few health problems. I haven’t done the gardening, but I realize I have other things. Recipes, penny- pinching ways lol, lots of beautiful words which she spoke come back to happily haunt me.
I'm expanding my garden to a full fledged farm, from 1/2 to 2 acres. This video is right on time. I'm gonna need some equipment though. My shovel and wheel barrow are just not gonna do it. People love my food. They recognize the taste is better than the store. We have lots of farmer's markets. It's for love, not money but money is good too! I'm from San Diego, retired to New Mexico. My dad's thumb was the greenest. Taught me well. 😊
Don't be ashamed of making good money! Gardening is hard, but enjoyable work and often underappreciated because most Americans now assume their food comes from a grocer.
Glad I started at the age of 18, just like he does I work on my farm alone, it's not as big as his in fact it's not even 1/4 of his area but my point is anyone can do it alone and earn money without spending that much in equipments, I'm currently 21 years old and im expanding my farm bit by bit, im genuinely happy
@@c.g.2511I don't think he did, although there's plenty of stories of people doing that by cutting all luxuries for 5-10 years paying down debt and just saving like crazy. He did say he has a small greenhouse at his house which isn't on site. I didn't hear them talk about the plot owner but it'd be cool to know if he owns it or leases it.
@C. G. Could be leasing the land rather than owning. Or the land was included with the price of the home so that debt doesn't count as debt for the business. If you already have an acre of space being your back yard.
I was raised around Amish, and a one acre garden is like afternoon work. This lifestyle is lost, and wonderful to see people living like this, and wonderful to see more people go to self gardening. Even a 10x10 ft plot can give you all the tomatoes and herbs you could need.
@@BeeTriggerBee All the learning and youtube can only get you so far. Get out in the garden and start planting! I have only a small garden plot, but the knowledge I gathered in the past year just from DOING is enormous. Just don't expect any wonders in your first years!
@@MoontownMoss I garden just about 10 x 10 around my house in town with almost no lawn and have enough tomatoes to eat all I want, can 4 -5 gallons of juice and turn the green tomatoes before the first frost into another 4 - 5 gallons of green tomato relish. Have to be smart about how you use your space.
@@BeeTriggerBee Read about common mistakes in books like "The Joy of Gardening", and "The Vegetable Gardener's Bible". Once you've grown for a year or two, start experimenting. We have been having great luck crowding our bush bean plants close this year just to see if we could. and anytime we grow a bush in set spaces we plant water melons between to use up the space in the garden. Gardening is 20% reading and listening, and 80% trial and error. Every plot of land is different, and you have to learn your own land.
I wanted to farm, but when I was younger and my husband and I bought our first house, the entire backyard was hardpan clay that was sticky mud in the rain and when dry, it was cracked and awful. There was a horse farm near us (we lived in a small town surrounded by all kinds of farms) and I was given permission to take as much as I wanted from the stall muck outs - straw/hay/horse urine and manure. Thier piles of muck out were very large and I would look for the "steaming parts" meaning the composting had started. Loaded up piles of that stuff and laid it over my backyard. Two years - TWO YEARS - and I had dark, black, crumbly rich soil that could grow ANYTHING! Free from a horse farm. That's how I make great soil for growing veggies!
good to know! I have rock hard clay soil but i have access to horse rsnches that will give me free manure so thanks for the confirmation that its even possible🙏
I knew this looked familiar. For the past two years I've driven right by there 2 and 3 times per week. Drove by today and saw him hard at work. Now I know who he is and what he's all about. Great episode. 🌱🌱🌱
Hey Kevin. 50 years old, just started gardening last year. You've been a HUGE help and inspiration. I've decided to go back to school for horticulture in August. Thank you for everything you do, it's become a passion.
@@Alien2799 botany, integrated pest management, soils, greenhouse management, sustainable ag, landscape installation, irrigation, plant ID, hort business, etc. I loved it because it was at a technical college and was very hands on. Greenhouse, equipment, raised beds, gardens and grounds on site, so classes were about doing, not just reading and lectures. The program coordinator has a great relationship with the nearby land grant university, so even more resources and experts.
Great thought! Learn and make points from every possible avenues like youtube, friends etc. Learn from their mistakes, adopt some new age solutions, materials and you will rock it!
Oh, I can tell you a story from my childhood. It were late 90-s and early 2000-s in Belarus. If you didn't have a job related to trade/theft, and you didn't have a "lecishcha" (summer residence) you were poor. We had ~15 ar, (appx. 0.37 acre) of land, with two capital buildings, big shed, apple and pear trees. All of this helped us to survive (regular jobs weren't paying much at all), so spring, and entire summer, and part of autumn you spend there as a kid, helping mother and grandmother (come one, this is post-Soviet country, quarter of the population is raised by single-sex couples - mother and grandmother, because father is either dead from alchoholism, or left, or missing somewhere). And oh boy, I loved to help, though I was 7-11 years old. I didn't learn much about plant lore, but I loved to dig the soil. And water all the plants in the evening. And of course harvest. Apart from trees, we had cash crops: flowers - very good for school year ends - everyone needs flowers, and for 1st of September, too; we had a plantation of strawberry: goes very well for "upper middle class" at the time - I still remember taste of home-grown strawberry every time I get a plastic one from Greece of Spain (or Poland in early season), couple greenhouses with tomatoes - with about the same taste effect as strawberries, peppers, cucumbers, blackberries, raspberries, blackcurrant, redcurrant, gooseberry, cherry, mini-strawberries; carrots, more cash crops - onions, radish; Cabbage and zucchini entirely for ourselves and of course (inb4: Belarus) potatoes. A lot of potatoes. I definitely missed something, but we had a lot of plants just for fun of it, like buckthorn, Jerusalem artichoke, quince, hemp. And flowers: daffodil - the best flower for sale, lilies - best price for little effort, roses just for the sake of it. Additional earnings were generated from nearby forest in good summer, where you could pick good boletes, dry them on a wood stove and sell, or keep for pearl barley soups in winter. So, point I'm trying to make. I didn't learn much about the agricultural techniques, but one thing I've learned, is that plants will try to live the max out of their life. You must do something horribly wrong in order to destroy your harvest if it grows in an environment close to natural (as opposed to dystopian monoculture farming landscapes). Plants really grow themselves, and compared to the work they do, your effort is really minimal. We didn't really use fertilizers, just mantained by the book rotation of plants and seeds, and used some compost from the mulch pile. 35 hours a week (of which, likely, half is just some not very hard work, where you check what needs to be done, rather than working hard) is pretty realistic from this standpoint. And we had food for us for almost entire year: we never bought any apples or potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, forest berries and were pretty well covered with preserved and pickled food, like jams, cucumbers and fermented cabbage. This was the MOST important source of income for people living in their apartment in the big city, receiving tiny pension and funny salary and no child support. And the money we were slowly grinding from sales of our products, in several years have allowed us almost a double expansion of living space, some money in bank accounts, and even some things allocated for other branches of the family. The years of high oil prices allowed Russia to pump money into Belarus in exchange for it being a submissive colony. Poor became a bit less poor, it has become possible to barely survive on salaries. In early 2000-s we have sold our summer residence, but again bought a different one in the same cooperative some 15 years after. I walked around my childhood places, some of them changed a lot, but one thing really changed was that no one is really growing anything anymore. My mother, just for fun of it, planted a 2x2 m space of potatoes, and they weren't even attacked by Colorado beetle - decade of no one planting potatoes either made the bug die out, or move somewhere else. Everyone was literally planting grass and making Alpine hills on their land. Children were chilling in pools, instead of learning the gardening; parents were cooking annoying burnt meats and so on. Call me silly, but this is not right: people need to learn to produce food themselves. No matter if you're a low-profile office worker or a conveyor assembly one - you need to be able to take vacation, work the land, grow stuff for yourself, see the difference, get educated on something arguably most important in our civilization. Pat on the back to you for figuring this out. And making 6 figures.
As a former market gardener/conventional grower this guy has it down tight. Lean farming all the way. Not killing himself to go to multiple markets a week (and wasting all the time and gas) Most people don't want to work consistently enough to pull this off. I know 1 other person who has done this, 2 acres in veg plus 3 in melons and winter squash for a fall/winter income- only ever brought in help for melons and winter squash harvest for a couple of weeks at the end.
I would have loved to hear more about how he got started and some of the barriers to entry. What has he done to establish a customer base and things like that!
I feel like you just have to jump in! We started a market garden last year with really no experience. We are doing better this year than last. Any money we make goes back into the farm. Remember too it takes like 4 years to build a business. My husband has another job to support this hobby 😂
Yeah like Spirit Ranger says you just need to dive in. You will likely need to pay for a spot at a local market and go from there. You could expand into weekly vegetable delivery service once you have established a good repore with the local farm market clients.
What a great thing to see, thank you for posting. One thing to note: he is in San Diego which means he can grow year round, rotate, etc. He also can afford to miss a few plantings, take a break, etc. Those of us in northern climates probably wouldn't see similar income without more acreage or more staff to leverage the short growing periods.
@@mechadebzilla Very good point. You can't do this in an area with large supermarkets and no wealthy people who can convince themselves to pay extra to get "no chemicals".
Thank you for mentioning where this all takes place. They mention wind, aridity, and temperature extremes but in San Diego those issues are relatively mild compared to say the high desert of southern California. A good question I wished had been asked is have you had any pest issues and how have you dealt with them?
He mentioned he just lost a broccoli crop due to frost... the one night he didn't cover the new crop. He's amazing! I'm very impressed. He needs an orchard next.
My little garden in my yard is blowing my mind. I've been eating fresh green beans for a month, just roasted a pumpkin and harvested 33 lbs of potatoes from potato bags yesterday. Tomatoes are ripening, 3 or 4 ears of corn ready to pick, more pumpkins, radishes, cucumbers, beets, carrots, lettuce, and herbs. Now I just want to expand haha.
Nice location, just keep in mind that unlike this farmer you will have to wire it up against wild life. Even birds tend to attack large fruit farms so they put mash on top of trees to protect them, it is also good against hail (that part of croatia is prone to hail, it is micro weather event so if it hit you it might skip village next to you). Also farming is about community, especially in rural balkan areas, keep your friends close and your neighbours even closer. Help them and they will help you, neighbour needs hand for picking his crop you help no matter what, he will return favour no question asked. Talk to them about crops, eg. if your neighbour grows potatoes by Ton that means you do not need to because they will provide you with as many you can eat. Exchange local goods, participate in cultural events (firewater making aka Rakija in late fall, pig slaughters in winter (event that brings many people together to prepare meat for winter supplies, meat and price is divided among families that work at event) and mimic hospitality of your neighbours (you will be offered food and drinks on every visit, also will be given food and drinks to take home because people split supplies, same thing is expected from you). Good luck and Welcome.
I watched a African farmer video called Bio Gas was another great use of composting, he traps the gas from the compost in a bladder and uses it to run his gas hot water and to cook on and also gets liquid fertilizer for the garden, was thinking it was a bit like Compost Tea method, and was thinking of doing the same thing and combining the two methods, this way you could water over the plant creating a natural insect repellent at the same time.
@@MrRerod well he’s evolved and no longer has that option haha. This was when he was starting out here. Now I visit him at the farmers market when I’m in town. You should too if you’re ever in Little Italy, San Diego.
I drive by this farm a few times every day to and from work at Ramona Family Naturals. Andrew is an AWESOME guy and a great asset to our Ramona community. Thank you for covering this farm Kevin! ❤
we just bought a house with a quarter acre and a greenhouse so I am researching how to homestead. This guy is so inspiring! I live in a similar climate- want to see more videos of this guy and his work and tips for gardeners!
@@epicgardeningYou should connect with David The Good as he starts his new nursery business. I’ve always been interested in seeing how people start from nothing to a new nursery. He’s started them in the past, so I’m curious to see the methodology from an expert.
@@epicgardeningyes more market-style gardening please! I’m not wanting to grow to sell, just maximize my suburban lot for feeding my family. And would love some videos on Colorado growing conditions (next time you’re in town for Botanical Interests business :)
If you can't buy land consider leasing. There are many farmers who could use the additional income. It often saves them from having to sell off plots of land that may have been in their families for years. There are several owner fnancing land sale sites that list such sales contrywide. Also, maybe join a land coop or start one to offset your own cost. Years ago I started watching "mikes backyard nursery" videos and getting his newsletter. Those same concepts he uses can be beneficial to growing veg & herbs. Gardening is good for our physical & mental health.
Would have loved to know what his pest treatment regimen is. For example what kind of loss does he experience from gophers, voles, moles, bugs, powdery mildew and what does he do to mitigate the damage.
@@wildzwaan He probably needs part time people to help him sell at the markets and move the product. My impression from this video is that he does the farming part of the business solo. A lot of solo entrepreneurs also use the term "we" rather than "I" when referring to their brand, whether or not they have employees; you're sort of including your customers and anybody you contract with in the mix of what you're doing, because businesses inherently need groups of people/customers/markets/collaborators to succeed. Everybody you work with can be a part of that story even if you're doing most of the job yourself.
i am entering in my 4th year of market garden with no till using silage cover, cover crops and broad fork only. Its only me, an over 60 yr old woman. I cant seem to get a product to market. It's the extra I just dont have in "man power" My 1st year farming i was attacked by a hive of ground bees, chased me across the yard and my boarder collie, in all the excitement, tripped me to the ground. That same year I was pinned under a downed tree that needed to be moved--it rolled. 2nd year i was very ill during peek season, turned out i have Lyme disease. 3rd year, i fell when jumping off the back of the truck. i had just finished cleaning out a load of compost. i fractured my arm. This season will be year 4 and i am hoping i will have a no pain and more gain experience ! My goal is to end the season thinking "I can do this" . Doing farming alone is very hard, very lonely and at times dangerous.
Great hard work, i have just under an acre of garlic planted this year that is basically all mamaged by myself, with a little help once in awhile from my kids and wife and help of my dads 3 point rototiler just before planting, other thsn that all is hand planted and maintained by myself. Also have a 2,500 sqft garden for our own food. The hardest part is I have Meniere's disease so weeds get away on me every so often when i have attacks and cant get out for a few days trying to catch up with animal and regular yard care.
This is awesome. They were talking the same gardening "language" and Kevin's questions were great. I'd love to see a series like this interviewing urban gardeners from different bioms and growing zones. It would be awesome if there was a little description or sidebar when they drop gardening terms like "hoop-house" or "broadforking" for the amateur gardeners like me... ELI5 lol.
I tried a new tomato last year - it's from Bayer (the aspirin people) - called a *Purple Boy.* *Outstanding hybrid as good as any heirloom.* Bacterial wilt it a bit of an issue here in north Georgia so hybrids are the best although I do grow heirloom krims and pineapples. They actually to fairly well but the bacterial wilt gets most of them before the end of the growing season. FYI - last year the hybrid purple boys were about $5 for some 30+ seeds. This year they're more on the order of $5 for 10 seeds. Inflation ordid Bayer suddenly realize they have a real winner with the purple boys??? I think a little of both.
I absolutely enjoyed the farm walk-through. I am starting my own small farm on 2 acres, building a greenhouse for seedling starters as well as microgreens, plus we are getting into the chicken game, we also have a baby pig a baby cow, and a new baby puppy. Seeing what one man can do was very humbling and I feel like I was meant for this kind of lifestyle. Thanks again.
Andrew, you are a real farmer by heart. That what you do is farming, hands dirty, sweating and fiscally doing the job, not using expensive machinery, and then calling yourself a farmer, well done. You are a great example, just love it. I thought I was the only one slogging away at my project but now I see I have a partner. Keep it up, the results are always so refreshing. Being well-organised is the key to success.
This is how gardening should be approached. Its so refreshing to see how simplisitic he makes it feel. At the end of the day its about overtime building good soil, supplying the needed nutrients, and planting with intention. What we dont see if the sheer bulk of work he is able to accomplish in a 6 hr work day becuase he has learned what works best for him. There is no failure in gardening, only knowledge gained. Thank you for this!
im in esco, ive been building up my backyard garden, getting better and better crops/yields with hopes of selling at farmers markets, and i work nights. this video hits hard, im so inspired and motivated now... time to get a broad-fork, ty for the video!
This is really great information. I have always thought about starting a small garden of the veggies I eat but never gave it a second thought. As the corporations and some farmers continue to mess with our food, I'm over it and want my own veggies grown. This is very motivating for me. I will be starting extremely small but I have hope that I can do something bigger by watching this. Thanks for the video!!
Great work, admire anyone who can pull off that amount of work and support himself. Just beware that Vitalis has patented seeds, a lot of them end up in Johnny’s catalog or high mowing. At least 40 varieties of organic lettuce has patents on them. Not to step on toes but be aware if you knowingly or unknowingly save seed from any of those you could end up in legal trouble. Actually you aren’t even allowed to let them go to seed.I refuse to plant varieties with patents, some may be ok with that but I’m not. That aside more power to this farmer.
Made a TH-cam account for the first time just to say that I really love this video and would love to see more videos like it! Fascinated by how small farmers and large gardeners make their systems work!
Clean soil is key, whether you use mulch, landscape cloth or have cleaned it up. That with irrigation makes it so easy. I never used those at first, SOOO much work. I only have a short grow season though. (Mid may to maybe september first, depending on frost) It's nice that he can grow year round there, definitely makes the ROI on the land higher.
Totally agree. I made a mistake of just putting seeds in my dirt with some compost. What a mess. All the weeds and the lettuce was always so dirty it took forever to clean. Now with the landscape cloth, it's so much nicer.
I also have a short growing season. This coming spring I will be building a high tunnel or hoop house to add more growing time". We just have to figure out what we can do to get more of what we need. Good luck
Nice job!! We need more men like this. I have a half acre. I can’t get motivated to do anything. I mow my front yard.. And I work 40 hours.. But this guy .. This is a good video.. Thanks for showing this. He deserves some kind of metal!! Very impressive!!
I hate my job but work it for my kids and my family and doggies. Would love to work for myself and have a farm and a piece of land. Maybe one day. Much love.
Awesome episode! It has been a while since you did a field trip interview. For Andrew to take care of the farm all by himself 👏🏿 very commendable. It seems he has energy for days. I love how you keep sampling those produce, Kevin. 😜 Bring the Hermit if possible!!
Like any other profession, what makes things like this doable is a huge knowledge base built from experience. That's what strikes me as the most intimidating. Just knowing that unless you have guidance, you're going to make costly and time consuming mistakes. Good on this guy for getting to this point where he makes it look easy enough to inspire others!
My profession is a geography teacher. Since I was a child, I have lived in a farming family, but the economic value of agriculture in my country is very low, everyone is trying to escape the role of a farmer, but I still find joy in caring for people, creating clean products for people, enjoying the feeling of working with nature and now I am a farmer😄. Thank you for sharing with us🥰
Nice job!! We need more men like this. I have a half acre. I can’t get motivated to do anything. I mow my front yard.. And I work 40 hours.. But this guy .. This is a good video.. Thanks for showing this. He deserves some kind of metal!! Very impressive!!
my garden right now is two 4x8 beds and one 3x15. I've been a little discouraged by the results but this video has been extremely inspiring. Thank you!
I'm 30 years old and work full time in Little Rock at a utility company. I'm gonna start a small farm at my house like this. I can't wait to see where it takes me. This video is very inspiring.
Andrew is a Gem! Thank you Kevin for taking your time to showing us his endeavors. Your channel was my 'first find' a few years ago when I started on YT. Your wealth of information is amazing and our bonus is your willingness to share it!
Would love to see more! Even go deeper into him preparing an starting beds. I’m on a 33 acre farm, trying to farm 1-2 acres intensive for food, but not having a tonne of luck, the amount of work is crazy, doesn’t help when every animal on the property is an escape artist.
As a casual observer, unless you have a lot of help most people seem to go with livestock only or plant growth only (except maybe chickens). Mixing the two with limited help seems very very difficult to do.
That's awesome. I have a 2 1/2 acres and it's inspiring to see just how much stuff you can actually grow on such a small footprint. As it is, I'm hoping that in the next 5 years that I'll finally be able to shift my focus away from being a wage slave to doing something like this. I mean at 54, my land is paid off, and my house is paid off, so 75% of my weekly grind is now being directed at this dream. To be off-grid in 5years and to be more prosperous and happy being a hobby farmer than I ever was in high tech.
It's great for your health, too. My health has gotten a lot better since I've been spending a few hours outdoors every day, walking around and tending to everything I have.
I use to do farm work. It'ts hard work, going to get farmers tan at all times. I'm happy making 70k a year now just to monitor and make adjustments to a hospital boiler/hvac system and watch netflick for most the time.
Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii want this job. I want this job. I wanna do this. I have no idea what I'm doing since I'm only in year 2 of gardening (I don't count randomly growing tomato and pepper plants over the years), but I would *adore* this. Being outside all the time. Working with my plants. Discovering how well they did (or hey, didn't do, you never know) when harvest comes. I only have two square foot gardens and I am *obsessed.*
I use to do farm work. It'ts hard work, going to get farmers tan at all times. I'm happy making 70k a year now just to monitor and make adjustments to a hospital boiler/hvac system and watch netflick for most the time.
Great video ! Thanks for posting ! It seems almost impossible for one person to take care of all those beautiful plants, but he looks like a busy bee, so must be doable. Good compost is a must ! I ordered some good compost (truck load) one year and it was great ! Same place two years later , and the quality wasn’t that great anymore, and the price was almost double. I have a clay soil , so spreading about 6 inches of compost was a must for me. Good luck with your farm ! Keep expending ! Nothing taste better than homegrown veggies ❗️ Good bless and stay healthy !
Hey Superman..would you share a list if the exact types of vegetables you grow? I.e. carrots, lettuce, tomatoes? Ps. Thx for the 7-5-7 slow release fertilizer. I want to direct sow...and when.. i am in 8a
This video is truly inspiring! It's impressive to see how he manages to farm 35 hours a week alone while achieving such great financial success. His dedication and hard work are commendable. I love the tips he shares about efficiency and passion for farming. Keep up the amazing work!
Have you considered doing a soil test for micronutrients? You can get too much compost, it doesn’t provide everything needed for the health of the plants. I have used Ohio Earth Food for testing in the past. High Brix Gardening
I'm confused why you said this. Do you think he's running up and down the beds like a madman? Seems like he uses his brain for crop management and just chugs away.
@@Lunarl4ndr you're not thinking about it fully. What other job requires as much bending, crouching, lifting, dragging, pushing, etc? Construction? Ditch digging? It's hard work, it doesn't require sprinting up and down the rows for that to be true.
@@Lunarl4ndr Well, normally people are doing stuff while sitting or doing mentally challenging stuff. He meant physically so we can ignore mental tire. With all that in mind: It becomes tiring because there are hours that you technically don't count, there is quite allot of physical repetition of moderately taxing tasks. It adds up.
Now that’s what you call a green thumb. He’s just naturally gifted for this, congrats man! It’s like when you ask someone to do a backflip and it does it casually at the first try. And when you ask how to do it the answer is something like “idk man, just… jump backwards” 😂 I also like a lot farming growing veggies but I have to read a lot! Congrats man, that’s a nice farm ❤️
This is so inspiring! Farming 35 hours a week solo and achieving six figures is a testament to hard work, smart planning, and innovation. A great example of how efficiency and dedication can lead to big success in agriculture!
I suppose this is my goal eventually. So far im just trying to garden enough to feed my family, but i would like to just turn that into farming and sell the extra.
The problem isn’t growing on a small farm. It’s selling product. If your in an area that has organic restaurants you can sell farm to table products easier. I’m 66 and woke up at 5 am every Saturday to watch Modern Farmer on TV.
The problem is also the ridiculous, taxpayer funded subsidies going to huge corporate farms. Without them, they couldn't bring us chemical-soaked Canola Oil for our McDonald's french fries, or as they call it, 'feeding the world' 😂🙄 Eliminate all subsidies and direct them to sustainable farming instead. We don't need most of what they are now producing anyways, they are just commodities that get us fat and sick.
What a cool guy. And will say that he truly works 35 hours a week plus many many more if doing it all by himself. Heck his brain has to work 24 hours a day on that garden. Not downing him he loves it and lives it and that is a marvelous deal.
I was about to say watching this. California, year round growing, even 100k is nothing for that. Most other locations will only be a fraction of that because of reduced growing seasons and yields.
I spent 2 12 hour days a week, picking just green beans and radishes, getting them ready for a 4 1/2 hour lucrative farm market, with a minimum hour unloading and loading the van, easily an hour setup at market, and an hour and a quarter round trip to market. That’s 30 1/4 hours and doesn’t even count weeding, watering, fertilizing, ground prep, seed starting, transplanting, tool sharpening. I easily had 30 hours a week weeding and watering. And soil prep for planting a radish crop every week and planting radish seeds, on my knees and covering the seeds. I didn’t use mechanical seeders because I dug the row, ran water and fertilizer down the row, then planted the seeds and covered them. He says 35 hours a week and I say he is closer to 35 hours a week of just bald faced lying.
I'm a few seasons experience home vegetable gardener, I enjoyed this video a lot and throughout it all I could not at all come to grips with 35 hours a week.
I know a market gardner who spent 14 hours planting carrots until she got a Jang seeder. Then it took her 6 minutes to do that job. Having the right tools and techniques makes a big difference.
I started doing my own farming work about 8 months ago and honestly it is so rewarding. I know the work is done right, my animals grow faster and healthier cause I do it myself.
This man is a human, I’ll bet his wife has a sense of humour and his daughter a spirit of wonder and adventure. Put him in any place and within a year he’d be eating fine and making money.
As a beginner grower you can imagine how much of your conversation with Andrew went straight over my head. If you are looking for more content for the less experienced grower like myself, you could take this 20 minute coversation and slice it up a dozen ways and explain in more detail. I almost need a cheat sheet for all the terms you guys used.
Only one market and he's doing six figures? Dang! That is truly amazing. I admire Andrew's style and approach. Easy going but diligent. Thanks for sharing. This is inspiring!
Yep, that 6 figures baffles me too. I had for an year a 50 m2 plot, no actual experience, but fed 2 people from there. So comparable I should have produced of 1k. For sure did not reached that, but he with more than one crop like me.. yep is doable. But this will mean what caches in, not what actually can be considered as income. English is not my primary language so sure I get something wrong. With 8k profit a month, I assume that he could afford more than a hoop per year.
@@ehombane he's in one of the most expensive areas of the US. He can sell for a lot of money, a lot of rich folks that want fresh organic food in San Diego.
Go say hi to Andrew, and if you're in the San Diego area, he's at the Little Italy Farmer's Market every Saturday: instagram.com/indian_summer_farm/
I recognize exactly where he is located. That area is one of the best ever zones for growing most anything.
r u in California? I am in Canada zone 5 so need to adjust my expectations :)
@@KCJohn316 Yes, the USDA hardiness zone in that area is 10a and 9b. Really nice weather.
Beautiful farm, great attitude, great interview. Thanks!
He said "grossing six figures". Most likely the net is just about 70k per year.
You know what you should do? A "day in a life" video on him so we can really understand how much work he puts in the farm and how it can keep it low cost
Yes! Yes! Yes!
I’m thinking it might be 35 hours in the fields but surely it’s more than that on paperwork, planning, tracking, networking etc???
That would be a really cool video. I agree 👍
@@jessicadentalaid4728 maybe his wife helps with that...
Yes!
When I retired, I bought a hobby farm & had it for 22 years. It kept me young and provided so much food for so many. Asparagus to Zucchini, blueberries to peaches. I loved it.
Can you reach me please I want to learn
@@homeministries100connect if you want
@@northerngirlhobbies what do you mean
That’s lovely to hear, thanks for sharing Victoria! 🙌
Did you keep animals to use their droppings for compost? Which animals?
At almost 65 years and growing gardens most of that time I admire this man and his plan. He is doing it right. I live solo but always raise more than I need so I can give the bounty away. My small plot has my house with some ornamental plants and a veg patch. Grow all from seed to save money. It works!
A similar age to you, trying to be as self sufficient for vegetables as possible. Have a husband and 4 adult kids and want grow enough to feed us all. I also belong to a community food share group. Being able to grow food is one of the most important skill you can have in my opinion. I live in the hills in Western Australia… greetings to all in the USA 😊
@@wendyneylon4377 I'm in WA Australia too, but a little south of Perth, on some land that I'm gardening with same motive as yours, and this vid also.. I'd love to hear about the group you mentioned please. 🙏
@@s-vbee7474 I live in Mundaring, east of Perth. We have a community garden at Glen Forrest in a park, known as the “Train Park”. They hold a food share there on the 3rd Sunday of each month. There is also a seed library in Mundaring and I help with the processing and packaging of seeds. We focus on seeds for food and for pollinators. There may be similar initiatives in your area. Hope you find something ❤️
Where do you live lol . I’d love to make a garden for myself and some to share .
Where do you get your seed from? My seeds didn't do as well as I thought this year.
My grandma lived off the land and had a huge garden. Something I deeply regret is not paying enough attention to how she planted etc. when I visited. It was/is something to be respected.
Have you gotten started yet? You’re obviously learning if you’re in this channel. 😊
That was so sweet what you shared, I cherish such memories like that. Definitely consider to reignite her memory and do it with your family.
@@jonestraloma I’ve had quite a few health problems. I haven’t done the gardening, but I realize I have other things. Recipes, penny- pinching ways lol, lots of beautiful words which she spoke come back to happily haunt me.
My Gramma gave me my passion too... My Grandfather worked the fields...
I'm expanding my garden to a full fledged farm, from 1/2 to 2 acres. This video is right on time. I'm gonna need some equipment though. My shovel and wheel barrow are just not gonna do it. People love my food. They recognize the taste is better than the store. We have lots of farmer's markets. It's for love, not money but money is good too! I'm from San Diego, retired to New Mexico. My dad's thumb was the greenest. Taught me well. 😊
What part of NM? I’m here in the state as well. It’s not about the money, it’s about feeding America with The freshest, not store bought
Don't be ashamed of making good money! Gardening is hard, but enjoyable work and often underappreciated because most Americans now assume their food comes from a grocer.
@@timothykeith1367 How much do you think we can make from 25 acres farm land ? I have family inherited land
Kubota interest free financing
Glad I started at the age of 18, just like he does I work on my farm alone, it's not as big as his in fact it's not even 1/4 of his area but my point is anyone can do it alone and earn money without spending that much in equipments, I'm currently 21 years old and im expanding my farm bit by bit, im genuinely happy
Remember that doing it manually is cheaper when you work on small pieces of land.
Wow good for you! That is fantastic!!
good for you son, do us proud. don't lose your high ride my friend!
How do you sell your crop?
Being genuinely happy is what's it about.👊🏾Happy growing!
So simple and straightforward. What’s most encouraging is his energy and approach. He farms within his means. Great example!
Agreed!
That's it right there. Scale slowly, work with what you have and just keep moving.
@@c.g.2511I don't think he did, although there's plenty of stories of people doing that by cutting all luxuries for 5-10 years paying down debt and just saving like crazy. He did say he has a small greenhouse at his house which isn't on site. I didn't hear them talk about the plot owner but it'd be cool to know if he owns it or leases it.
Jesus, youll believe anything aslong as it makes you "feel" good. Youre what keeps used car salesman in 6 figure tax brackets.
@C. G. Could be leasing the land rather than owning. Or the land was included with the price of the home so that debt doesn't count as debt for the business. If you already have an acre of space being your back yard.
I was raised around Amish, and a one acre garden is like afternoon work. This lifestyle is lost, and wonderful to see people living like this, and wonderful to see more people go to self gardening. Even a 10x10 ft plot can give you all the tomatoes and herbs you could need.
Where would you start if you wanted to learn more about this?
@@BeeTriggerBee All the learning and youtube can only get you so far. Get out in the garden and start planting! I have only a small garden plot, but the knowledge I gathered in the past year just from DOING is enormous. Just don't expect any wonders in your first years!
10 x 10? All you could need? uh huh
@@MoontownMoss I garden just about 10 x 10 around my house in town with almost no lawn and have enough tomatoes to eat all I want, can 4 -5 gallons of juice and turn the green tomatoes before the first frost into another 4 - 5 gallons of green tomato relish. Have to be smart about how you use your space.
@@BeeTriggerBee Read about common mistakes in books like "The Joy of Gardening", and "The Vegetable Gardener's Bible". Once you've grown for a year or two, start experimenting. We have been having great luck crowding our bush bean plants close this year just to see if we could. and anytime we grow a bush in set spaces we plant water melons between to use up the space in the garden. Gardening is 20% reading and listening, and 80% trial and error. Every plot of land is different, and you have to learn your own land.
I wanted to farm, but when I was younger and my husband and I bought our first house, the entire backyard was hardpan clay that was sticky mud in the rain and when dry, it was cracked and awful. There was a horse farm near us (we lived in a small town surrounded by all kinds of farms) and I was given permission to take as much as I wanted from the stall muck outs - straw/hay/horse urine and manure. Thier piles of muck out were very large and I would look for the "steaming parts" meaning the composting had started. Loaded up piles of that stuff and laid it over my backyard. Two years - TWO YEARS - and I had dark, black, crumbly rich soil that could grow ANYTHING! Free from a horse farm. That's how I make great soil for growing veggies!
good to know! I have rock hard clay soil but i have access to horse rsnches that will give me free manure so thanks for the confirmation that its even possible🙏
That's awesome!!!
I love the approach of not worrying so much about weeds and how pretty it is. It helps to stay practical!
I knew this looked familiar. For the past two years I've driven right by there 2 and 3 times per week. Drove by today and saw him hard at work. Now I know who he is and what he's all about. Great episode. 🌱🌱🌱
The area looks familiar. Is this north San Diego County?
Ramona@@eesa
Hey Kevin. 50 years old, just started gardening last year. You've been a HUGE help and inspiration. I've decided to go back to school for horticulture in August. Thank you for everything you do, it's become a passion.
Good for you! Best of luck to you at school! 🌿
I’m about a month shy of 60 yrs old and I just finished my AAS in horticulture last month. Absolutely loved it! Good luck to you!
@@jillrobbins2293 What were you taught there?
@@Alien2799 botany, integrated pest management, soils, greenhouse management, sustainable ag, landscape installation, irrigation, plant ID, hort business, etc. I loved it because it was at a technical college and was very hands on. Greenhouse, equipment, raised beds, gardens and grounds on site, so classes were about doing, not just reading and lectures. The program coordinator has a great relationship with the nearby land grant university, so even more resources and experts.
@@jillrobbins2293 Thank you
I am a twelve year old and I already want to become a farmer because of this guy 😆 Very inspiring!
That's really cool. I hope you do it kiddo!
Do, grow as many different plants as possible, it's really the future, kid. You got a good head on your shoulders coming to that conclusion early
Great thought! Learn and make points from every possible avenues like youtube, friends etc. Learn from their mistakes, adopt some new age solutions, materials and you will rock it!
DO IT!! Don’t give up on that dream! We need more youth like you! I am proud of you!
Thats great kiddo!
Tomato farmer here. The thing with the twine is called jersey weave. Holds the tomatos great. Ive used the technique for over 30 years.
Oh, I can tell you a story from my childhood.
It were late 90-s and early 2000-s in Belarus. If you didn't have a job related to trade/theft, and you didn't have a "lecishcha" (summer residence) you were poor. We had ~15 ar, (appx. 0.37 acre) of land, with two capital buildings, big shed, apple and pear trees. All of this helped us to survive (regular jobs weren't paying much at all), so spring, and entire summer, and part of autumn you spend there as a kid, helping mother and grandmother (come one, this is post-Soviet country, quarter of the population is raised by single-sex couples - mother and grandmother, because father is either dead from alchoholism, or left, or missing somewhere). And oh boy, I loved to help, though I was 7-11 years old. I didn't learn much about plant lore, but I loved to dig the soil. And water all the plants in the evening. And of course harvest. Apart from trees, we had cash crops: flowers - very good for school year ends - everyone needs flowers, and for 1st of September, too; we had a plantation of strawberry: goes very well for "upper middle class" at the time - I still remember taste of home-grown strawberry every time I get a plastic one from Greece of Spain (or Poland in early season), couple greenhouses with tomatoes - with about the same taste effect as strawberries, peppers, cucumbers, blackberries, raspberries, blackcurrant, redcurrant, gooseberry, cherry, mini-strawberries; carrots, more cash crops - onions, radish; Cabbage and zucchini entirely for ourselves and of course (inb4: Belarus) potatoes. A lot of potatoes. I definitely missed something, but we had a lot of plants just for fun of it, like buckthorn, Jerusalem artichoke, quince, hemp. And flowers: daffodil - the best flower for sale, lilies - best price for little effort, roses just for the sake of it. Additional earnings were generated from nearby forest in good summer, where you could pick good boletes, dry them on a wood stove and sell, or keep for pearl barley soups in winter.
So, point I'm trying to make. I didn't learn much about the agricultural techniques, but one thing I've learned, is that plants will try to live the max out of their life. You must do something horribly wrong in order to destroy your harvest if it grows in an environment close to natural (as opposed to dystopian monoculture farming landscapes). Plants really grow themselves, and compared to the work they do, your effort is really minimal. We didn't really use fertilizers, just mantained by the book rotation of plants and seeds, and used some compost from the mulch pile. 35 hours a week (of which, likely, half is just some not very hard work, where you check what needs to be done, rather than working hard) is pretty realistic from this standpoint. And we had food for us for almost entire year: we never bought any apples or potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, forest berries and were pretty well covered with preserved and pickled food, like jams, cucumbers and fermented cabbage. This was the MOST important source of income for people living in their apartment in the big city, receiving tiny pension and funny salary and no child support. And the money we were slowly grinding from sales of our products, in several years have allowed us almost a double expansion of living space, some money in bank accounts, and even some things allocated for other branches of the family.
The years of high oil prices allowed Russia to pump money into Belarus in exchange for it being a submissive colony. Poor became a bit less poor, it has become possible to barely survive on salaries. In early 2000-s we have sold our summer residence, but again bought a different one in the same cooperative some 15 years after. I walked around my childhood places, some of them changed a lot, but one thing really changed was that no one is really growing anything anymore. My mother, just for fun of it, planted a 2x2 m space of potatoes, and they weren't even attacked by Colorado beetle - decade of no one planting potatoes either made the bug die out, or move somewhere else. Everyone was literally planting grass and making Alpine hills on their land. Children were chilling in pools, instead of learning the gardening; parents were cooking annoying burnt meats and so on. Call me silly, but this is not right: people need to learn to produce food themselves. No matter if you're a low-profile office worker or a conveyor assembly one - you need to be able to take vacation, work the land, grow stuff for yourself, see the difference, get educated on something arguably most important in our civilization.
Pat on the back to you for figuring this out. And making 6 figures.
As a former market gardener/conventional grower this guy has it down tight. Lean farming all the way. Not killing himself to go to multiple markets a week (and wasting all the time and gas) Most people don't want to work consistently enough to pull this off. I know 1 other person who has done this, 2 acres in veg plus 3 in melons and winter squash for a fall/winter income- only ever brought in help for melons and winter squash harvest for a couple of weeks at the end.
I would have loved to hear more about how he got started and some of the barriers to entry. What has he done to establish a customer base and things like that!
Same. How do you even get started?
How many of us saw this video and started thinking about a career change?
I feel like you just have to jump in! We started a market garden last year with really no experience. We are doing better this year than last. Any money we make goes back into the farm. Remember too it takes like 4 years to build a business. My husband has another job to support this hobby 😂
Yeah like Spirit Ranger says you just need to dive in. You will likely need to pay for a spot at a local market and go from there. You could expand into weekly vegetable delivery service once you have established a good repore with the local farm market clients.
Same, ie: how did he decide on where to farm, how did he fund the farm when starting off, what was his business plan, etc.
What a great thing to see, thank you for posting. One thing to note: he is in San Diego which means he can grow year round, rotate, etc. He also can afford to miss a few plantings, take a break, etc. Those of us in northern climates probably wouldn't see similar income without more acreage or more staff to leverage the short growing periods.
And like, Scotland "North-ish" say . . . there is NOTHING you could grow except sheep on an acre that would feed one person.
Also has access to a market large enough and wealthy enough to pay.
@@mechadebzilla Very good point. You can't do this in an area with large supermarkets and no wealthy people who can convince themselves to pay extra to get "no chemicals".
Thank you for mentioning where this all takes place. They mention wind, aridity, and temperature extremes but in San Diego those issues are relatively mild compared to say the high desert of southern California. A good question I wished had been asked is have you had any pest issues and how have you dealt with them?
He mentioned he just lost a broccoli crop due to frost... the one night he didn't cover the new crop. He's amazing! I'm very impressed. He needs an orchard next.
My little garden in my yard is blowing my mind. I've been eating fresh green beans for a month, just roasted a pumpkin and harvested 33 lbs of potatoes from potato bags yesterday. Tomatoes are ripening, 3 or 4 ears of corn ready to pick, more pumpkins, radishes, cucumbers, beets, carrots, lettuce, and herbs. Now I just want to expand haha.
Bought an acre in croatia, moving in june..can't wait. Awesome garden!!
Where in Croatia did you buy land? Why croatia? Is your family originally from Croatia? I'm curious because my family came from there.
@@KatarinaS. close to small city Lipik, and yes my parents are from there..moving back after 30 years living in the Netherlands.
@@multi_misa72 someone going back for all of us that escaped :D Sretno!
@@fey9915 hvala, moja zena holandjanka naredila pa se mora😁
Nice location, just keep in mind that unlike this farmer you will have to wire it up against wild life. Even birds tend to attack large fruit farms so they put mash on top of trees to protect them, it is also good against hail (that part of croatia is prone to hail, it is micro weather event so if it hit you it might skip village next to you). Also farming is about community, especially in rural balkan areas, keep your friends close and your neighbours even closer. Help them and they will help you, neighbour needs hand for picking his crop you help no matter what, he will return favour no question asked. Talk to them about crops, eg. if your neighbour grows potatoes by Ton that means you do not need to because they will provide you with as many you can eat. Exchange local goods, participate in cultural events (firewater making aka Rakija in late fall, pig slaughters in winter (event that brings many people together to prepare meat for winter supplies, meat and price is divided among families that work at event) and mimic hospitality of your neighbours (you will be offered food and drinks on every visit, also will be given food and drinks to take home because people split supplies, same thing is expected from you). Good luck and Welcome.
I watched a African farmer video called Bio Gas was another great use of composting, he traps the gas from the compost in a bladder and uses it to run his gas hot water and to cook on and also gets liquid fertilizer for the garden, was thinking it was a bit like Compost Tea method, and was thinking of doing the same thing and combining the two methods, this way you could water over the plant creating a natural insect repellent at the same time.
I love Andrew! I used to get $20 produce boxes from him when he first started this farm about 8 years ago. He’s the man.
That's so cool!
That's so cool!
Why did you stop?
@@MrRerod well he’s evolved and no longer has that option haha. This was when he was starting out here. Now I visit him at the farmers market when I’m in town. You should too if you’re ever in Little Italy, San Diego.
Hello wheres his farm is it in USA?
I drive by this farm a few times every day to and from work at Ramona Family Naturals.
Andrew is an AWESOME guy and a great asset to our Ramona community.
Thank you for covering this farm Kevin! ❤
I'm from Ramona as well and came across this video at random. Crazy.
Hi I lived in Ramona in 1973-76! I’m sure it changed alot.back then the only natural grocers was small.
I think he is a Genus ! What a Hero to any person who has a dream, You Can Do it !!
we just bought a house with a quarter acre and a greenhouse so I am researching how to homestead. This guy is so inspiring! I live in a similar climate- want to see more videos of this guy and his work and tips for gardeners!
Hey Kevin, I’d love to see more of these types of videos. Seeing other inspiring people is content I’d like the see! Thanks!
100%
@@epicgardeningYou should connect with David The Good as he starts his new nursery business. I’ve always been interested in seeing how people start from nothing to a new nursery. He’s started them in the past, so I’m curious to see the methodology from an expert.
Yes definitely
@@epicgardening +1 I would love to see more tours/interviews like this and discussion around how they got started doing it.
@@epicgardeningyes more market-style gardening please! I’m not wanting to grow to sell, just maximize my suburban lot for feeding my family. And would love some videos on Colorado growing conditions (next time you’re in town for Botanical Interests business :)
If you can't buy land consider leasing. There are many farmers who could use the additional income. It often saves them from having to sell off plots of land that may have been in their families for years. There are several owner fnancing land sale sites that list such sales contrywide. Also, maybe join a land coop or start one to offset your own cost. Years ago I started watching "mikes backyard nursery" videos and getting his newsletter. Those same concepts he uses can be beneficial to growing veg & herbs. Gardening is good for our physical & mental health.
Would have loved to know what his pest treatment regimen is. For example what kind of loss does he experience from gophers, voles, moles, bugs, powdery mildew and what does he do to mitigate the damage.
Chemicals galore?
@@wildzwaan Sounded like no. Seems like an organic set up. He mentioned earwig damage and having to replant a lot because of them.
@@kellyriddell5014 Perhaps. Also caught at least one 1st person plural in the video, so the 'one-man farm' claim may be clickbait.
@@wildzwaan He probably needs part time people to help him sell at the markets and move the product. My impression from this video is that he does the farming part of the business solo. A lot of solo entrepreneurs also use the term "we" rather than "I" when referring to their brand, whether or not they have employees; you're sort of including your customers and anybody you contract with in the mix of what you're doing, because businesses inherently need groups of people/customers/markets/collaborators to succeed. Everybody you work with can be a part of that story even if you're doing most of the job yourself.
@@caseylarae9109 Perhaps.
This is how I grew up on my grandmother garden. She had a 3 Acre Garden & she loved it. There were so many neighbors visits.
i am entering in my 4th year of market garden with no till using silage cover, cover crops and broad fork only. Its only me, an over 60 yr old woman.
I cant seem to get a product to market. It's the extra I just dont have in "man power"
My 1st year farming i was attacked by a hive of ground bees, chased me across the yard and my boarder collie, in all the excitement, tripped me to the ground. That same year I was pinned under a downed tree that needed to be moved--it rolled.
2nd year i was very ill during peek season, turned out i have Lyme disease.
3rd year, i fell when jumping off the back of the truck. i had just finished cleaning out a load of compost. i fractured my arm.
This season will be year 4 and i am hoping i will have a no pain and more gain experience ! My goal is to end the season thinking "I can do this" .
Doing farming alone is very hard, very lonely and at times dangerous.
Sympathize with you. I have a youtube channel on the farm topic, hope you watch it
Working in nature by yourself, nobody interrupting you and providing a service. 💯🌱🌱🌱Life
Sounds bliss right 😊
besides the guy interviewing you, let the man speak!
@@anacondaboom6417 lmao im 2min in and he did interrupt him fs
Great hard work, i have just under an acre of garlic planted this year that is basically all mamaged by myself, with a little help once in awhile from my kids and wife and help of my dads 3 point rototiler just before planting, other thsn that all is hand planted and maintained by myself. Also have a 2,500 sqft garden for our own food. The hardest part is I have Meniere's disease so weeds get away on me every so often when i have attacks and cant get out for a few days trying to catch up with animal and regular yard care.
This is awesome. They were talking the same gardening "language" and Kevin's questions were great. I'd love to see a series like this interviewing urban gardeners from different bioms and growing zones. It would be awesome if there was a little description or sidebar when they drop gardening terms like "hoop-house" or "broadforking" for the amateur gardeners like me... ELI5 lol.
A hoop house is like a green house that does not have to shed snow. A broad fork is a wide pitchfork. If there is snow, you need a pointy kinda house.
I tried a new tomato last year - it's from Bayer (the aspirin people) - called a *Purple Boy.*
*Outstanding hybrid as good as any heirloom.*
Bacterial wilt it a bit of an issue here in north Georgia so hybrids are the best although I do grow heirloom krims and pineapples.
They actually to fairly well but the bacterial wilt gets most of them before the end of the growing season.
FYI - last year the hybrid purple boys were about $5 for some 30+ seeds. This year they're more on the order of $5 for 10 seeds.
Inflation ordid Bayer suddenly realize they have a real winner with the purple boys??? I think a little of both.
I absolutely enjoyed the farm walk-through. I am starting my own small farm on 2 acres, building a greenhouse for seedling starters as well as microgreens, plus we are getting into the chicken game, we also have a baby pig a baby cow, and a new baby puppy. Seeing what one man can do was very humbling and I feel like I was meant for this kind of lifestyle. Thanks again.
Andrew, you are a real farmer by heart. That what you do is farming, hands dirty, sweating and fiscally doing the job, not using expensive machinery, and then calling yourself a farmer, well done. You are a great example, just love it. I thought I was the only one slogging away at my project but now I see I have a partner. Keep it up, the results are always so refreshing. Being well-organised is the key to success.
This is how gardening should be approached. Its so refreshing to see how simplisitic he makes it feel. At the end of the day its about overtime building good soil, supplying the needed nutrients, and planting with intention. What we dont see if the sheer bulk of work he is able to accomplish in a 6 hr work day becuase he has learned what works best for him. There is no failure in gardening, only knowledge gained.
Thank you for this!
im in esco, ive been building up my backyard garden, getting better and better crops/yields with hopes of selling at farmers markets, and i work nights. this video hits hard, im so inspired and motivated now... time to get a broad-fork, ty for the video!
Very inspiring. I am a gardener in central Texas specializing in Texas natives. This makes me want to up my game up.
I have a ranch in New Mexico, this gives me hope as well
Tx heat last year really hurt , have you tried growing raspberries
This is really great information. I have always thought about starting a small garden of the veggies I eat but never gave it a second thought. As the corporations and some farmers continue to mess with our food, I'm over it and want my own veggies grown. This is very motivating for me. I will be starting extremely small but I have hope that I can do something bigger by watching this. Thanks for the video!!
Great work, admire anyone who can pull off that amount of work and support himself.
Just beware that Vitalis has patented seeds, a lot of them end up in Johnny’s catalog or high mowing.
At least 40 varieties of organic lettuce has patents on them. Not to step on toes but be aware if you knowingly or unknowingly save seed from any of those you could end up in legal trouble. Actually you aren’t even allowed to let them go to seed.I refuse to plant varieties with patents, some may be ok with that but I’m not.
That aside more power to this farmer.
That's a disgusting practice. Farmers should boycott those seeds/plants.
Made a TH-cam account for the first time just to say that I really love this video and would love to see more videos like it! Fascinated by how small farmers and large gardeners make their systems work!
I finally got an account to watch the gardening, too. It's nice to follow Kevin and a couple homesteaders.
😮😀👍
Clean soil is key, whether you use mulch, landscape cloth or have cleaned it up. That with irrigation makes it so easy. I never used those at first, SOOO much work. I only have a short grow season though. (Mid may to maybe september first, depending on frost) It's nice that he can grow year round there, definitely makes the ROI on the land higher.
Totally agree. I made a mistake of just putting seeds in my dirt with some compost. What a mess. All the weeds and the lettuce was always so dirty it took forever to clean. Now with the landscape cloth, it's so much nicer.
I also have a short growing season. This coming spring I will be building a high tunnel or hoop house to add more growing time". We just have to figure out what we can do to get more of what we need. Good luck
Nice job!! We need more men like this.
I have a half acre.
I can’t get motivated to do anything.
I mow my front yard.. And I work 40 hours..
But this guy ..
This is a good video..
Thanks for showing this.
He deserves some kind of metal!! Very impressive!!
I hate my job but work it for my kids and my family and doggies. Would love to work for myself and have a farm and a piece of land. Maybe one day. Much love.
Unbelievable! He has the right formula and the farm is magnificent! Wishing him all the success.
Awesome episode! It has been a while since you did a field trip interview. For Andrew to take care of the farm all by himself 👏🏿 very commendable. It seems he has energy for days. I love how you keep sampling those produce, Kevin. 😜 Bring the Hermit if possible!!
LOL I couldn't help it!
Like any other profession, what makes things like this doable is a huge knowledge base built from experience. That's what strikes me as the most intimidating. Just knowing that unless you have guidance, you're going to make costly and time consuming mistakes. Good on this guy for getting to this point where he makes it look easy enough to inspire others!
My profession is a geography teacher. Since I was a child, I have lived in a farming family, but the economic value of agriculture in my country is very low, everyone is trying to escape the role of a farmer, but I still find joy in caring for people, creating clean products for people, enjoying the feeling of working with nature and now I am a farmer😄. Thank you for sharing with us🥰
Nice job!! We need more men like this.
I have a half acre.
I can’t get motivated to do anything.
I mow my front yard.. And I work 40 hours..
But this guy ..
This is a good video..
Thanks for showing this.
He deserves some kind of metal!! Very impressive!!
my garden right now is two 4x8 beds and one 3x15. I've been a little discouraged by the results but this video has been extremely inspiring. Thank you!
Would love to see more of these people.
These people are you.
....and me.
Wanna be like this man
Farmers? If you go out to the countryside there is lots of them.
Go find em
We need more farmers like Andrew. Tackling on his own is so impressive. Keep up the good work.
Too much work for most farmers. If they can’t plant it and harvest it with a tractor, they ain’t doing it.
I'm 30 years old and work full time in Little Rock at a utility company. I'm gonna start a small farm at my house like this. I can't wait to see where it takes me. This video is very inspiring.
I love how enthusiastic this guy was, what a charming farm to be on
Andrew is a Gem! Thank you Kevin for taking your time to showing us his endeavors. Your channel was my 'first find' a few years ago when I started on YT. Your wealth of information is amazing and our bonus is your willingness to share it!
Would love to see more! Even go deeper into him preparing an starting beds. I’m on a 33 acre farm, trying to farm 1-2 acres intensive for food, but not having a tonne of luck, the amount of work is crazy, doesn’t help when every animal on the property is an escape artist.
Keep on keeping on!
As a casual observer, unless you have a lot of help most people seem to go with livestock only or plant growth only (except maybe chickens). Mixing the two with limited help seems very very difficult to do.
oh man, local guy here. If he opened up that market and sold his produce and nursery plants, I would be there!
Amazing tips on growing organic vegetables! I especially loved the advice at 3:25 about composting techniques!
"I really appreciate your approach of not stressing over weeds and focusing on practicality. It keeps things simple and beautiful!
This is how I grew up on my grandmother garden. She had a 3 Acre Garden & she loved it. There were so many neighbors visits.
That's awesome. I have a 2 1/2 acres and it's inspiring to see just how much stuff you can actually grow on such a small footprint.
As it is, I'm hoping that in the next 5 years that I'll finally be able to shift my focus away from being a wage slave to doing something like this. I mean at 54, my land is paid off, and my house is paid off, so 75% of my weekly grind is now being directed at this dream. To be off-grid in 5years and to be more prosperous and happy being a hobby farmer than I ever was in high tech.
It's great for your health, too. My health has gotten a lot better since I've been spending a few hours outdoors every day, walking around and tending to everything I have.
keep in mind that this land is a lot more than "a little more than acre", looks closer to 2.5 like what you have
Your enthusiasm for organic farming is contagious! Watching your videos inspires me to share my own farming experiences with the same passion.
I use to do farm work. It'ts hard work, going to get farmers tan at all times. I'm happy making 70k a year now just to monitor and make adjustments to a hospital boiler/hvac system and watch netflick for most the time.
This man is making 6 figures by himself in 4000m2. Massive respect, I hope I can emulate something like this in the future
He’s grossing 6 figures.
@@ChopperChad yeah and in cali. So what maybe $30,000 once everyone get their pieces.
If he makes that kind of money it's because he has found gullible customers who pay premium prices for niche products, like Versace carrots, I imagine
@@PDZ1122 Or maybe he just hustles instead of sitting on the couch like the average Murican!
@@da324he definitely found some niche, probably mostly sells to the rich who want fresh "organic" produce
Andrew rocks with his way of doing things, how quickly he said no, no loans, good for you!!!!
Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii want this job. I want this job. I wanna do this. I have no idea what I'm doing since I'm only in year 2 of gardening (I don't count randomly growing tomato and pepper plants over the years), but I would *adore* this. Being outside all the time. Working with my plants. Discovering how well they did (or hey, didn't do, you never know) when harvest comes. I only have two square foot gardens and I am *obsessed.*
I love your passion... can read it clearly through the screen. Keep it up! I'm excited for you.
I use to do farm work. It'ts hard work, going to get farmers tan at all times. I'm happy making 70k a year now just to monitor and make adjustments to a hospital boiler/hvac system and watch netflick for most the time.
Yeah, do gardening for a hobby (or to get the benefits of fresh crops) not to make money.
@@wwjccsddo you garden
Neat job you got where to apply for similar one lol
Wow what an inspiration this young man is! I want to see more of the gardens.
Great video ! Thanks for posting !
It seems almost impossible for one person to take care of all those beautiful plants, but he looks like a busy bee, so must be doable.
Good compost is a must ! I ordered some good compost (truck load) one year and it was great ! Same place two years later , and the quality wasn’t that great anymore, and the price was almost double.
I have a clay soil , so spreading about 6 inches of compost was a must for me.
Good luck with your farm ! Keep expending ! Nothing taste better than homegrown veggies ❗️
Good bless and stay healthy !
Hey Superman..would you share a list if the exact types of vegetables you grow? I.e. carrots, lettuce, tomatoes? Ps. Thx for the 7-5-7 slow release fertilizer. I want to direct sow...and when.. i am in 8a
Follow him on IG!
Show more backyard farmers...love this.
Hi Regina where are you from?
This video is truly inspiring! It's impressive to see how he manages to farm 35 hours a week alone while achieving such great financial success. His dedication and hard work are commendable. I love the tips he shares about efficiency and passion for farming. Keep up the amazing work!
Have you considered doing a soil test for micronutrients? You can get too much compost, it doesn’t provide everything needed for the health of the plants. I have used Ohio Earth Food for testing in the past. High Brix Gardening
I love this guy! The guest tripped and then he said 'sorry'. Says a lot about his character
35 hours a week of farming on your own is definitely equal to 70 hours a week for any other job. It takes a lot of guts and determination.
I'm confused why you said this. Do you think he's running up and down the beds like a madman? Seems like he uses his brain for crop management and just chugs away.
@@Lunarl4ndr I don’t think that but I know how hard it can be do that on your own both physically and mentally.
@@Lunarl4ndr you're not thinking about it fully. What other job requires as much bending, crouching, lifting, dragging, pushing, etc? Construction? Ditch digging? It's hard work, it doesn't require sprinting up and down the rows for that to be true.
@@Lunarl4ndr I'm 28 with a little 12'x12' garden and it gets tiring. I'm not out there all the time though, so not as used to it.
@@Lunarl4ndr Well, normally people are doing stuff while sitting or doing mentally challenging stuff. He meant physically so we can ignore mental tire. With all that in mind: It becomes tiring because there are hours that you technically don't count, there is quite allot of physical repetition of moderately taxing tasks. It adds up.
Now that’s what you call a green thumb. He’s just naturally gifted for this, congrats man!
It’s like when you ask someone to do a backflip and it does it casually at the first try. And when you ask how to do it the answer is something like “idk man, just… jump backwards” 😂
I also like a lot farming growing veggies but I have to read a lot!
Congrats man, that’s a nice farm ❤️
Earning 6 figures and making 6 figures in profit is a hugely different thing 😂
Am curious what his net is
Leaving the roots in, is one of the best things you are doing. The microbe load is incredible when you do that. Well done!
Very inspirational! To do this solo is unreal. Major congrats to him
Wow, a great video. The enthusiasm of both of the people is great. Feels like an authentic conversation between two gardening nerds.
Love the tree comment - it might make sense to integrate some agroforestry with alleycropping to get a slight shade going too on some sides. 😊
Your vegetable garden is so large and beautiful. I love gardening and have always wished to have a garden like that
This is so inspiring! Farming 35 hours a week solo and achieving six figures is a testament to hard work, smart planning, and innovation. A great example of how efficiency and dedication can lead to big success in agriculture!
I suppose this is my goal eventually. So far im just trying to garden enough to feed my family, but i would like to just turn that into farming and sell the extra.
As someone who is thinking about going back to take over the family far, this is inspiring. Thanks guys!
do it! the world needs more farmers
As long as it's not farming that involves banks or corporations. That's not fun farm8ng.
The problem isn’t growing on a small farm. It’s selling product. If your in an area that has organic restaurants you can sell farm to table products easier. I’m 66 and woke up at 5 am every Saturday to watch Modern Farmer on TV.
The problem is also the ridiculous, taxpayer funded subsidies going to huge corporate farms. Without them, they couldn't bring us chemical-soaked Canola Oil for our McDonald's french fries, or as they call it, 'feeding the world' 😂🙄 Eliminate all subsidies and direct them to sustainable farming instead. We don't need most of what they are now producing anyways, they are just commodities that get us fat and sick.
Your farm looks so beautiful! Just looking at it makes me want to get involved in gardening right away! 🌾❤
What a cool guy. And will say that he truly works 35 hours a week plus many many more if doing it all by himself. Heck his brain has to work 24 hours a day on that garden. Not downing him he loves it and lives it and that is a marvelous deal.
Super inspiring! We are in our first year as serious market gardeners, looking forward to the growth potential here!
Excellent video!
context: He's a farmer, in California. $100k there is like $30k elsewhere. He's in for $3M for that 1 acre plot.
Yeah you don't get into farming for the money.
Did he say what part of California?
@@jesusrodriguez7947Ramona CA
I was about to say watching this. California, year round growing, even 100k is nothing for that. Most other locations will only be a fraction of that because of reduced growing seasons and yields.
@@jesusrodriguez7947 Ramona, near San Diego
I spent 2 12 hour days a week, picking just green beans and radishes, getting them ready for a 4 1/2 hour lucrative farm market, with a minimum hour unloading and loading the van, easily an hour setup at market, and an hour and a quarter round trip to market. That’s 30 1/4 hours and doesn’t even count weeding, watering, fertilizing, ground prep, seed starting, transplanting, tool sharpening. I easily had 30 hours a week weeding and watering. And soil prep for planting a radish crop every week and planting radish seeds, on my knees and covering the seeds. I didn’t use mechanical seeders because I dug the row, ran water and fertilizer down the row, then planted the seeds and covered them. He says 35 hours a week and I say he is closer to 35 hours a week of just bald faced lying.
I'm a few seasons experience home vegetable gardener, I enjoyed this video a lot and throughout it all I could not at all come to grips with 35 hours a week.
I know a market gardner who spent 14 hours planting carrots until she got a Jang seeder. Then it took her 6 minutes to do that job. Having the right tools and techniques makes a big difference.
I started doing my own farming work about 8 months ago and honestly it is so rewarding. I know the work is done right, my animals grow faster and healthier cause I do it myself.
I love Andrew! I used to get $20 produce boxes from him when he first started this farm about 8 years ago. He’s the man.
would love more breakdown from him on getting started the finances and equipment. what a pro
*I wanna be a farmer, I need a new life with not too many guys around*
I feel it
This man is a human, I’ll bet his wife has a sense of humour and his daughter a spirit of wonder and adventure. Put him in any place and within a year he’d be eating fine and making money.
weirdo
As a beginner grower you can imagine how much of your conversation with Andrew went straight over my head. If you are looking for more content for the less experienced grower like myself, you could take this 20 minute coversation and slice it up a dozen ways and explain in more detail. I almost need a cheat sheet for all the terms you guys used.
This guy could be anybodies best friend. Good story. Great interview Kevin.
Only one market and he's doing six figures? Dang! That is truly amazing. I admire Andrew's style and approach. Easy going but diligent. Thanks for sharing. This is inspiring!
Hello manja I think I like the glasses you are wearing , I think I need to buy some so I can look like you ,just kidding how are you doing today
Remember though he’s in California where you almost have to make 6 figures to live comfortably.
Yep, that 6 figures baffles me too.
I had for an year a 50 m2 plot, no actual experience, but fed 2 people from there.
So comparable I should have produced of 1k. For sure did not reached that, but he with more than one crop like me.. yep is doable.
But this will mean what caches in, not what actually can be considered as income.
English is not my primary language so sure I get something wrong.
With 8k profit a month, I assume that he could afford more than a hoop per year.
@@ehombane he's in one of the most expensive areas of the US. He can sell for a lot of money, a lot of rich folks that want fresh organic food in San Diego.