Speaking from a perspective of being a spouse who was not fully bought in to the market farm venture. I will say that you did a fantastic job capturing the narrative. I have however started to drink the kool-aide and of course started to sell it but it took awhile for me to get there. From an outside perspective I feel that a lot of folks only showed the more glamorous side of owning a market farm. Which gives unrealistic expectations and leaves the door open to overspend and under deliver. We have learned to set our own course. By far your channel is one of my favorite resources. Appreciate the 30-40 hrs spent. Trust me I completely understand. Heading over to check out your merch. No comment necessary just know I am an official nerd ✌🏼
Agree 100% and showing the good and the bad of farming. So many opt to only glamorize the oh so beautiful part of it. Fortunately Jesse seems to present the whole package, the ups and the downs. Like you this channel is definitely one of our favorite's and the Sunday Morning picker upper for us!
Hey... just curious because I want to start as well. Can you name some of the downs you think are nearly never mentioned (aside from much work and low returnrates etc. but rather those that you really don´t hear people talking about or you feel are not emphasized in the right way).
@@anniinglucksdorf960 absolutely! For me I had very little experience and learning as we grow. I would turn to TH-cam for guidance of course leaning on bigger channels that showed amazing gardens and already established support. We started with a blank slate. We didn’t have a great growing foundation on so many levels. Our grounds needed a ton of work our access to supplies such as compost and amendments were extremely hard to find due to our location. The more material we needed the more expensive it was and the further away it was. We started way too big too fast. At first it was my husband trying to do it on his own and then I found the valve behind working to live and we just went from 0-100. We saw all of these established market gardens using extravagant tools. So of course we bought in. In reality we didn’t need them nor were we ready for it. We spent a ton of time, money and resources. We also lost sight of how we would sell our product. We live in a small community where your presence and impact really matter. We spent so much time trying to glamorize what we were doing we forgot to look up to introduce ourselves to our local community. We had become a TH-cam channel who happened to have a farm vs a farm who happens to have a TH-cam channel. Biggest advice is be on the same page with your partner. Compromise and challenge the norm. You can absolutely be successful and happy just know you will put in way more than you think you get out of it but when you look back you realize you got so much more than you ever expected. Good luck and start small ☺️
@anniinglucksdorf960 It's super seasonal work so when the farm is going, you are going. I don't have a lot of time to socialize during the main growing season but I do get a lot more down time in the winter. I am happy to have that schedule during the year but it's really not for everyone. I also do a market on Saturday so my days off during the week don't always line up with the average person. Depending on where you live, there is also weather to consider. It doesn't matter if it's 90 degrees out, below freezing, or raining. My work has to get done and I can try to schedule that during the cooler summer temperatures (getting up SUPER early) or the warmer fall temperatures but you can't count on being comfortable.
Hello! I'm Tom, a farmer in Vietnam. On my TH-cam channel, I share daily activities from my farm, providing a glimpse into life on a Vietnamese farm. Additionally, I demonstrate how to prepare traditional Vietnamese dishes. Feel free to visit my channel to explore the farming experience in Vietnam, and if you enjoy it, please consider subscribing for more content. Thanks for stopping by!" ❤❤❤
Starting off as a "hobby" here, we broke even on soft costs 1st year selling flowers direct to customers in the city. Run a property management business and my wife is a photographer so we have 3 jobs. Nice to show your kids you can grow something, work outdoors and make money but definitely a labor of love hope to oneday call myself a successful farmer.
Great job Jessy! I'm amazed how many other farmers I talk to get upset when I tell them I run my farm like a business, which is why I am a mushroom farmer, and we need more mushroom farmers. We only farm mushrooms, we farm them in my partially temperature-controlled barn and deliver them every week year-round. Having recurring revenue all year long is a great way to farm. If you are ever interested in learning mushroom farming Jessy, we'd love to help you. Again, great job and great content farm nerd!
So much this. If I had any advice to a new farmer is focus on high dollar, high return crops. That is why started with Microgreens and edible flowers, now I am adding mushrooms. I do like how Jesse stated once you've learned up existing ventures, then you can expand. Once I have all of these humming, I'll focus on herbs, again focusing on gaining as much local market share of high dollar items before adding new lines that have far lower margins.
If you are thinking of starting or just started a farm, watch this video dozen or more times. Let it sink into your head! All of Jesse's advice are worth more than the weight of gold. I farm for a living. $100,000 or more profit sounds great but that's generally gross profit, not net profit. To get $100,000 profit, you WILL need additional labor besides yourself, your spouse (even your kids). Labor cost, workman comp and insurance will take a big chunk out of the $100,000.
100% correct! Nobody will NET 100k per year doing manual labor solo (at least not until hyperinflation kicks in). It's a team effort and product/service diversity is generally a better idea too..
Insurance...must mean business insurance, or crop insurance? Your health insurance will be free if you have a family size 4 and making under $40k per year, there are ample subsidies. However once the kids are gone and you get older, it gets incredibly expensive, so be prepared for that. We were shocked at the cost.
Another really excellent video. You mention it is OK to keep day job at first. Excellent advise, and with that I would remind people that you have to have a strategy for health insurance before giving up a regular job. Second thought is, be very careful about rented or leased land. You can invest a fortune in building beds and building soil fertility on land you do not own, and owner can simply not renew the lease. It can work, but be careful. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Biggest mistake is not adopting out your kids after they lose interest in farm work. However you can extend their useful life by teaching them how to edit your video's.
I think if we traded teenagers it could work. My teenager works very hard on a friend's farm but will do nothing for me personally without putting up an enormous fight.
Thank you so much for this wake up call to folks in love with starting small farms. We appreciate your practical and down to earth advice. All the best to you and your family.
I watched a composting video from No Till during a serious 3 week battle of Covid. It gave me much needed escape, and I promised myself that when I regained some strength, I wanted to finally start a small market garden. Since then I have moved twice, and finally bought a cute distressed house in the city that has a ton of water saving potential and a small hill that is begging to be terraced and farmed! I will not have the room or available sunlight hours to do a dense garden, but I do have a lot of friends who love to garden, and many vacant lots to choose from to buy and expand in the future. I'm thinking of doing a market garden co-op and starting an Urban Gardn Market in the middle of the food desert we have on the south side of town, as well as a compost station (in the vacant but heavily shaded lot behind me) for all of the uncontaminated yard waste of the gardeners! I have this channel to thank for the awesome inspiration and technical advice you give! ❤
I have a small backyard garden for my family of four and know the work that requires so I can only imagine how much hard work goes into a farm as a business. With that said, I would love to find a farmers market or small farm grower that is close to me so I can shop weekly and practice eating in season more. Most are a good 20-40 minute drive away but I think it is better for our health and I want to support local small farms and see that as a win win situation.
The romantic idea of following my grandparents who farmed for a living has turned into the cold water plunge of reality in the level of work they did living that way! They worked to feed a family of 7 kids plus have income from farmers markets. A handy labor force built into the large family model possibly added some level of productivity with minimal increased overhead but as kids grow and leave that strain comes back in time. The change in society where seemingly every product comes into the home wrapped in plastic from far off lands never seen has stirred this desire to be free of that dependency. Yet watching our two adult children go out to the world with jobs that stress them out and leave them feeling lost, I wonder if they may make the turn back and follow our lead. Time will tell. Great video, thoughtful topic for sure! Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go work on our new greenhouse! 40 x 15 high tunnel doesn’t build itself ya know!❤❤😂 #farminglife
I'm in the early stage of reviving a 25 acre farm to grow fruits and vegetables on, so this was very helpful for me. I tend to get ahead of myself and come up with a way bigger plan then I can handle, so this last year was a learning curve for sure, especially once I started digging into the buidiness side of farming.
Starting small and focus on limited crops. Establishing preplanted buyers, selling forward. I grew way more of some crops than others in my 1/4 acre rural garden. It only takes a couple yrs to focus on the best crops and how to maximize production. Much labor. If you love gardens but don't garden you probably only imagine it's a job you will enjoy. It's got to be in your blood. I've been looking for serious gardeners for 10+ yrs. I only see them on internet, 25 acres sounds like the Augean stables. But I'm ready! Best successes this year-marshmallow, eggplant, Roselle, walking onions, spaghetti squash. This vid has valuable info. Alert-gardening, farming is labor and trial/error intensive. It's a beautiful life, good food, 1/2 your day, most days outside, except when snowing or raining. Important to have a good partner/s. Critical to progress, grow the business. Find a business partner who is a grower, loved soil. No wannabes unless of course there's $$$ to make it worth while. Get a solid contract. Keep daily records. Talk is cheap. Run your business like a business. And another thing, no weekends off. 🍆
Love the video!! Yes new farmers develop land without the end goal on site: *grow too many varieties *truly don’t run it as a business. *spread themselves too thin- start a project and finish. *don’t think longer term- use perennial plants to help with shoulder seasons. *rely on “friends” to buy produce. *integrate animals into the farm way too fast. *use the first year as experimental? Why not grow what you know.. hit home runs not bunts.
To add on to your comment about starting out. Unless someone is independently well off, a person will have to have a job for a while. Also if a person does have 20 acres & only use 1 acre, this can be a great way to have indirect income by renting out the land. There are "horsey people" that are constantly searching for pasture and will pay a good amount to rent it out. There's a couple of sayings in ag. 1st one is "If you want to have a way to lose all of your money, take up farming." The 2nd one is "If you think that professional gamblers are the riskiest income earners, they are not. Farmers and Ranchers take on the greatest risk because they are taking on a business that may or may not "make" at the end of the season due to all sorts of external influencing factors."
Regarding the last bit of advice, at least in the videos published on this channel, I see a lot of aversion to automation, which would be the key to scaling up. I think this gets associated with industrial farming, but it's important to remember that getting your farm off of pesticides+herbicides by going no-till is not the same thing as using a compact tractor to turn your compost, lay your compost, or plant and harvest. Obviously, you have to be careful with some of this, because you could get a planter/harvesters that disturbs the soil too much and undoes a lot of the benefits from no-till.
Excellent explanation. Most well put truth about farming I have seen for those beginning to farm or hobby farms, homesteading, as some call it. Regardless of what you call it, it is going to be work, and you have to enjoy hard labor to farm. Your rewards are what you grow and looking back at what you have accomplished. It is mentally soothing, but you also have to know how to mentally handle the not so soothing parts as well.
Well said I totally agree with everything you said when it comes to those on U Tube I find it hard to agree with most things they say. I recently heard Wednesday that you could have a full market garden for under $500 and only work 21 to 25 hours a week doing so I lol
That's only possible if you already own the land, have experience with growing at that scale, and already know who your customers will be. Creators like that don't mention those things.
I started watching your videos about a year ago and i have to say your wit and your character make it a blast every video. Your good at it my friend ! the infos great too yeah lol.... so keep up the hard work and thanks for all you share . Take care
Yes we started tiny, just testing the waters, not quitting my day job. :) We are still trying to answer important questions. What will sell? What parts of the market are already saturated? What is the best niche for us in our area? Just starting to expand a bit now, but still very much experimenting. Currently we are mostly just trying to pay for our chicken and goat habit. :D Hopefully by the time I don't want to/can't do my other job anymore we'll be able to turn a decent profit.
Thank you Jesse. We are one of those new market farmers. We actually have an established dairy goat herd and also do chickens and have done those things for a decade now. Growing vegetables is what we are new at and also what we intend to start to sell at farmers markets along with pasture raised chickens. Our end goal is a commercial kitchen with a food producers license (Washington state) where we can offer our dairy commercially and produce a variety of products with ingredients supplied from the permaculture type farm with rotating animals (goat, chicken, pigs sheep) and growing beds with agnostic no till methods. All of this on 7 acres. We have heard negative feedback from the USDA and others about what we see as diversity in products. But this to me is the one critical survival method that our business plan incorporates. Jesse- What is your opinion on diversity like I speak of in the market place? It only matters what the USDA thinks because we are trying for an FSA loan to acquire the land we have been leasing to run our operation and live on.
My 2 cents are, I wouldn't even consider market gardening without a well and a shed with power. You have to have storage room, some form of refrigerator/cooler, and a wash area. 6th year of selling and only one year i could have almost gotten by with rain and heavy mulching. My sales got better as the year progressedthis year, because my garden survived the heat and drought where most people lost theirs. Also, there is a physical factor mentioned, but I'm under 1/2 acre gardening ground. That for me is maxed out. If I opened more ground, i would need to hire help. Great video! Love your work!
I agree. This was my first year doing a large farmers market and I tried to just do ALL the harvesting on Thursday afternoons and then process it and package it on Fridays, since I didnt have a cooler and it was extremely hard!
@ElderandOakFarm I get by with multiple refrigerators set at different temperatures, coolers, and ice packs. A walk-in cooler confuses me as an optimal vegetable storage temperature is so different for many vegetables, I can't wrap my head around one temperature fits all. But like you, I harvest and move vegetables very quickly if at all possible. In fact, I sell to the market on Thursday and Saturday with what I harvested the day prior. All other days go at half value to the grocery stores. I'm a gardener, not a vegetable storage warehouse, lol.
I have a farm business, doing okay with that, but wanted to expand to crop production. Been slowly researching over the last few years. Definitely going no till, don't have the machinery for it, plus the ground been tilled so much, it's going to be work to bring it back. My hardest challenge is actually finding compost. Who would have thought compost is that hard to get.
Great video. I’m not starting my own farm (any time soon) but I have gardening clients that are starting too much and taking on extra costs which is noticeably hurting their relationship with their partner (who isn’t enthusiastic about farming). I’m glad you’re saving people stress.
I watched several locals start cannabis grow operations. Most had no experience growing plants of any kind. A year later they were selling all the lights,tents,fans etc. Farming is hard.
We found that the tilling process is greatly influenced by the media. We found that modern equipment is only needed when one is trying to grow more than that family needs for themselves. We do it all by hand.
This is a mistake that I have made and see other business owners make as well, but people will not fall down at your feet crying "finally you are here to save us", hahah. Most people where I live still prefer supermarkets. I have to fight for every single client in my repertoire, while also trying to keep my vegetables happy. Also, as Charles Dowding says, fresh vegetables are a luxury for most people, not a staple food.
Sadly they are a luxury for most. Personally I'm hoping that one day the bigger chains will open up at least a small spot in their produce sections for locally grown items. Something along those lines anyway. It's a win for everybody but only time will tell. Keep growing and keep seeing out new vendors for your products. One day it will pay off!
I've worked on a number of farms and one of the mistakes I've seen is not being open to adapting new or different methods, both from newer farmers and from multigenerational old timers. They might be struggling as a business and dead set on changing nothing, which is painful for more than one reason as an employee. The best way to avoid this issue that I've experienced so far is to hold a regular meeting, maybe once a week or so, in order to sit down and discuss things like what is working, what could use adjusting, observations that employees have made, and brainstorming solutions as a group.
All bang on!.. I'm not running a small farm, I'm just aiming to become less dependant on "the system" (with shrinking easily available fossil fuels, energy and implicit-energy is going to get more expensive, like winter cucumbers in the UK.. they require lots of heat to grow.. so cost is now up, availability is down.. I see this as a one way street).. have 1/2 an acre and am gradually building up our food production, organically. Most of this still applies.. I'd LIKE to not have to buy anything in, but thinking of this as a business in certainly the way to go, things that take a lot of effort and that I need little of, get bought im. I'm building out my rotation adding a new bed or two each year, slowly adding to the breadth of food. I did once run a very small engineering business, got ISO9001 accreditation, part of that was "continuous improvement".. that is IMHO the only way to run anything. You will never be perfect, but you can always do it better.
There are no "fossil" fuels. And they are definitely not ending. That's fear mongering by the elites we hear for decades now. It's a scheme of control. But congratulations for wanting some more independence
Great video. The first time I hear someone talk about all that in a way that makes sense. The money aspect is crucial and being so precise with numbers is very helpful. Thank you very much, Jesse, you are awesome.
I don't know your name sir, however I will say you did a phenomenal job with this video. It would be great if I could reach out to you somehow. You were on point with everything you said I wish you the best and you're business sir.
I live in israel and its a very expensive place to live in, but sometimes you just have to follow your dream, even if you dont have enough capital or whatever. A bless chases a bless
I learned from my own experience that if something is hard and time consuming then I am doing it wrong. Not saying there is an easy way to do everything but I can stop doing things that hurt me or take up too much time and get calories from a source that is less taxing.
Now, if you wrote 500 books, each on one of the intricacies of planting, growing, harvesting, and selling turnips, you could quickly be on the path to early retirement.
writing a book and "not recouping your advance": Technology today allows easier self publishing via print on demand and while traditional publishing gives 15% royalty per copy sold the self pub side can capture 70% for the author. Both paths require just as much marketing work as the other while your break even point is so much lower being an Indie Author.
the first point mentioned is to approach the farm as a business. question please, I would like to grow my own food. meat and vegetables for myself and my family with no intention for selling, is this possible?
At 51, with 2 acres and no farming experience whatsoever. Dreams of a local market produce farm seem daunting. Since I'm a finish trim contractor with deep experience in home construction, maybe I'll build a few houses instead.
I thought I watched a video where you interviewed a gentleman who had been growing medicinal herbs up north of Mars Hill North Carolina maybe near Burnsville? I was wanting to re-watch that video but I can't seem to find it. Could you provide me with the link?
Hi there. I’m wondering what your thoughts are on seed and species of food in general are. It’s beginning to get increasingly difficult for me to find seed variety that produces healthy food full of nutrients. Our veggies and fruit are not packed with near as much nutes as they used to be
Step Zero to any farm: SPEADSHEET IT! Get areas, estimated yields, costs, and profits mapped out on to a spreadsheet and play around with different configurations. This wil 1) get you a great road map for your farm that you know has the highest chance of working, and 2) get you used to/fluent in spreadsheets. Keeping clean, precise records will make your farm more effecient and allow you to see the impact changes to your farm actually have.
I like pickles. And I ask my wife to buy me a copy of your book for Christmas. There. I hope this helps your revenue. Although I make absolutely no mistakes in my backyard gardening--that I will admit to--its nice to understand other peoples struggles.
Interplanting increasing disease and not reducing it just sound silly lol. Whats the science behind that? Ive always seen a decrease in disease from interplanting, when done correctly, because it makes the disease harder to spread. All of the issues you described are typically from overcrowding.
Thank you for this video it's good to know that these are "common mistakes" lol😅 cause i can relate to most especially the bills don't care your building farm #brokefarmer 😂😂 #pushingahead 😢😅
as the old saying goes 'one step at a time' and 'learn as you go' and 'slow and steady wins the race' and KISS 'keep it simple stupid' ...and I think you don't need to grow lots o different things 4-5 things is probably enough and easy if it is not comfortable and easy and SIMPLE ....you bit off more then you can chew
3:42 exactly what my dad did, moved us out to the middle of nowhere and then left my apathetic mom to take care of us while he stayed gone for weeks and months at a time working out of state. Destroyed the established garden by adding a ton of woodstove ashes to it cuz he read about it in a toilet book. Now im 30yo and tasked w fixing it all and building him a retirement plan for free. I can’t wait to get some decent yields and start looking for my own chunk of paradise
hello everything is fine ? My name is Kleber Vagula, I live in MG Brazil and I'm 32 years old. I work in an institution, I am an agricultural coordinator, my family is interested in going to live and work in the United States, what is the need for farmers who work with foliage and vegetables in the United States? Just being able to respond, I really appreciate it.
You already have a normal job, you already have a place. If you have a hope of succeeding then you'd be buying implements before you move and attempting to market garden before you even look at land.
Before starting our farm I spent a few years listening to the No-Till growers podcast. One thing I remember hearing a lot was start small. Imagine what size farm you could handle and cut that in half. This was said over and over again. This I think is good advise, one I’ve taken to heart. We are now after three years growing looking at expanding the growing area but even this will be a slow planned out thing.
Hello! I'm Tom, a farmer in Vietnam. On my TH-cam channel, I share daily activities from my farm, providing a glimpse into life on a Vietnamese farm. Additionally, I demonstrate how to prepare traditional Vietnamese dishes. Feel free to visit my channel to explore the farming experience in Vietnam, and if you enjoy it, please consider subscribing for more content. Thanks for stopping by!" ❤❤❤
I'm not a farmer but I have started growing food. I must say It is very difficult to grow food successfully year after year. I highly appreciate small scale farmers and the hard work that they do to feed people. These farmers should be more respected and they deserve to earn more money!
Plant perennial trees and shrubs that can supply you with food you can store over the winter or to supplement your grocery bill. If your soil is horrible try raised beds. 1) Plant crops or ornamentals that generate a lot of biomass you can compost. 2) Try to think outside the box for ways to grow food that aren't going to break the bank. For instance, I have a large yard with soil that is clay mixed in with chunks of sandstone with little in the way of organic material in it. I will be planting a lot of plants that can make their own nitrogen and place these plants near food producing trees and shrubs to cut down on having to fertilize. 3) I am planting a Winkler hazel nut hedge, a hedge of elderberry, figs and comfrey. The elderberry, figs and comfrey I will be propagating from rooting cuttings or planting roots I am getting off eBay very cheaply. I have Callery pears which are invasive on my property so I am going to use the Callery pear branches and do air layering to create pear root stock and graft Asian and European pears onto the two Callery pears I have. I don't see any point in cutting down trees that are beautiful part of the year when I can use them. 4) Pace yourself and if you know any other gardeners ask if you can have any cuttings from blackberries or raspberries when they thin out their plantings. Most gardeners like to share plants and give advice about what works and doesn't work in their garden for your area. 5) Look for food plants that are also beautiful or are dual purpose like beets which have an edible root and greens.
I'm growing to feed my family healthy organic food. Cost and time are definitely a consideration, but experience and working with nature is priceless. Love your videos as they are always informative and fun!
I think growing as much of your own food as you have the space for is a no-brainer. Even if you're in an apartment, you can grow edibles instead of house plants. And it's going to take about the same effort as going to the market and buying that produce would've taken. But the gentleman in the video is talking about farming. Farming is a business. Very, very different from growing your own food. I think that's the main thing this video is trying to impart. It's like the difference between cooking dinner, and opening a restaurant.
@deinse82 Yes, I understand what the video was about and don't need it explained to me. I was just saying growing your own food takes a lot of effort, money, and time as well, living on 30 acres myself, I understand a lot of the complexity.
@@lulajohns1883 You are absolutely correct. Of course the scale, economics and stakes are at a different level from providing your own food to farming as a business but all his advice translates beautifully to the home gardener. Each aspect simply needs to be reframed according to your context. Quality of compost, learning the basics, how things grow in your garden, learning to interplant so it works, managing your spending and expectations, buying good tools that you'll actually use, planning your planting for a consistent harvest to avoid gluts and lean times, growing what you'll actually eat are just a few offhand points that apply across the board. Home gardening is a business where you are your own customer. Approaching it from that standpoint takes one's efforts to the next level to grow the most food for your family and friends that you can.
@@deinse82I know you're right, the video definitely seems geared towards a farming business. BUT the title says "growers", not "farmers", not "produce sellers". So it is somewhat misleading.
A video showcasing all the things that went wrong during your current season would be awesome. It doesn't always go according to plan. Thank you for the video!
I tell people to basically expect to fail comedically (if it weren't for the real money and labor at stake) for the first 3-5 years, and then you'll start to gain some traction; as long as you don't burn out or become bitter about it. Ideally, you might want a part time/seasonal job as well, to help keep things afloat an pay things off faster. The best land you can start with is pasture or hayfield... any "conventionally" managed row crop acres is going to be horrid while it recuperates (we just ended season 5... and we can finally grow produce worth selling in any sort of quantity; and I had 10 prior years experience operating a small produce operation back home). If you have any aspirations to have fruit... get it in now (that's going to take years before you get anything useful off of it). Plant rootstock now, and learn to graft for later (you can buy 750 apple seeds, with 90% germ test, for $15, and buds are about $1 a tree). I planted 4 - 50 foot rows of blackberries 5 years ago; and I had enough new starts off them to plant 1/4 acre. Same for raspberries. Strawberries fill in fast (couple seasons), but you have to stay on the weeds. Asparagus takes 3 years +/- to get going enough to harvest off of.
Thanks for the video, Jessie. I'm not "starting" a farm but am working toward converting my backyard garden into a market garden with plans to sell vegetables (and other items) at local farmers' markets. So while the garden isn't new, the concept of operating it as a business rather than a hobby is. I appreciate your tips and insight on this and your other videos.
Not many youtubers explain where most of the money comes from.. you can grow hundreds of different veggies, herbs, ect. but people will buy the same few things. the best selling things for me have been: slicing tomatoes, bell peppers, and lettuce. I don't get many sales on herbs, kale, and hot peppers. Ive replaced all the space ive used for the veggies that dont sell with the ones that do, it works.
Edwardsville, IL and surrounding areas. If you're looking into market gardening and have some patience strawberries are very easy to sell and don't take up much space. The thing is you have to transplant plugs in the fall to get a spring/summer crop the following year@@ARUNKUMAR-gh3uw
Yeah in my area that is a mistake I see new market gardmers make about 25% of the time. They grow things that other market garners aren't already selling. Nothing wrong per definition but a number of them have gone big on things market garners here don't usually sell and that supermarkets also don't sell. So customers need to try it for the 1st time, and it takes time to get people used to it (so ffs focus on what sells, everything else should be a limited scale experiment).
Great advice. I farm 9000 sq ft of beds. A mini farm. You sure learn a lot. I sell a bit, but no business plan. To make a farm of any size practical, a business plan is essential. A big game changer came along when we asked ourselves why are we doing this, and we went right back to the orignal aim - we want to provide at least 60% of our own veggies which we would otherwise buy. And from that we realized that our primary customer is our own kitchen. From there many things fell into place, what to grow, when to grow, bed plans, business plan, etc. We can grow exactly what we need (or exaclty what this ground grows well and we eat it); the profit is not having to buy it, and the extra that we sell or trade is fun. And yes, I have a day job - totally essential is you want to farm like this unless of course you want to go totally off the grid and simply survive, which I very much respect.
Speaking from a perspective of being a spouse who was not fully bought in to the market farm venture. I will say that you did a fantastic job capturing the narrative. I have however started to drink the kool-aide and of course started to sell it but it took awhile for me to get there. From an outside perspective I feel that a lot of folks only showed the more glamorous side of owning a market farm. Which gives unrealistic expectations and leaves the door open to overspend and under deliver. We have learned to set our own course. By far your channel is one of my favorite resources. Appreciate the 30-40 hrs spent. Trust me I completely understand. Heading over to check out your merch. No comment necessary just know I am an official nerd ✌🏼
Agree 100% and showing the good and the bad of farming. So many opt to only glamorize the oh so beautiful part of it. Fortunately Jesse seems to present the whole package, the ups and the downs. Like you this channel is definitely one of our favorite's and the Sunday Morning picker upper for us!
Hey... just curious because I want to start as well. Can you name some of the downs you think are nearly never mentioned (aside from much work and low returnrates etc. but rather those that you really don´t hear people talking about or you feel are not emphasized in the right way).
@@anniinglucksdorf960 absolutely! For me I had very little experience and learning as we grow. I would turn to TH-cam for guidance of course leaning on bigger channels that showed amazing gardens and already established support. We started with a blank slate. We didn’t have a great growing foundation on so many levels. Our grounds needed a ton of work our access to supplies such as compost and amendments were extremely hard to find due to our location. The more material we needed the more expensive it was and the further away it was. We started way too big too fast. At first it was my husband trying to do it on his own and then I found the valve behind working to live and we just went from 0-100. We saw all of these established market gardens using extravagant tools. So of course we bought in. In reality we didn’t need them nor were we ready for it. We spent a ton of time, money and resources. We also lost sight of how we would sell our product. We live in a small community where your presence and impact really matter. We spent so much time trying to glamorize what we were doing we forgot to look up to introduce ourselves to our local community. We had become a TH-cam channel who happened to have a farm vs a farm who happens to have a TH-cam channel. Biggest advice is be on the same page with your partner. Compromise and challenge the norm. You can absolutely be successful and happy just know you will put in way more than you think you get out of it but when you look back you realize you got so much more than you ever expected. Good luck and start small ☺️
@anniinglucksdorf960 It's super seasonal work so when the farm is going, you are going. I don't have a lot of time to socialize during the main growing season but I do get a lot more down time in the winter. I am happy to have that schedule during the year but it's really not for everyone. I also do a market on Saturday so my days off during the week don't always line up with the average person. Depending on where you live, there is also weather to consider. It doesn't matter if it's 90 degrees out, below freezing, or raining. My work has to get done and I can try to schedule that during the cooler summer temperatures (getting up SUPER early) or the warmer fall temperatures but you can't count on being comfortable.
@@stephanieyoung2248 thanks for your reply and taking the time. I am glad about every input I can get!!!
Come for the farming, stay for the life lessons. This video is a gem. Thank you, Farmer Jessy.
Hello! I'm Tom, a farmer in Vietnam. On my TH-cam channel, I share daily activities from my farm, providing a glimpse into life on a Vietnamese farm. Additionally, I demonstrate how to prepare traditional Vietnamese dishes. Feel free to visit my channel to explore the farming experience in Vietnam, and if you enjoy it, please consider subscribing for more content. Thanks for stopping by!" ❤❤❤
Starting off as a "hobby" here, we broke even on soft costs 1st year selling flowers direct to customers in the city. Run a property management business and my wife is a photographer so we have 3 jobs. Nice to show your kids you can grow something, work outdoors and make money but definitely a labor of love hope to oneday call myself a successful farmer.
Great job Jessy! I'm amazed how many other farmers I talk to get upset when I tell them I run my farm like a business, which is why I am a mushroom farmer, and we need more mushroom farmers. We only farm mushrooms, we farm them in my partially temperature-controlled barn and deliver them every week year-round. Having recurring revenue all year long is a great way to farm. If you are ever interested in learning mushroom farming Jessy, we'd love to help you. Again, great job and great content farm nerd!
So much this. If I had any advice to a new farmer is focus on high dollar, high return crops. That is why started with Microgreens and edible flowers, now I am adding mushrooms. I do like how Jesse stated once you've learned up existing ventures, then you can expand. Once I have all of these humming, I'll focus on herbs, again focusing on gaining as much local market share of high dollar items before adding new lines that have far lower margins.
@@serenaterra3479 Greencastle, PA
I sure hope you are selling your used mushroom compost! That stuff is the best and so hard to find.
@@SetasMushrooms I was going to ask about your compost, if you had, but you're a little far from me, about 3 hours.
@@tanyawales5445 Yes, we do. It's $18 for a 10-lb bag. I love making money on things we throw away.
"There's no comment section in selling pickles." is definitely going to become a favorite out of context quote of mine.
If you are thinking of starting or just started a farm, watch this video dozen or more times. Let it sink into your head! All of Jesse's advice are worth more than the weight of gold. I farm for a living.
$100,000 or more profit sounds great but that's generally gross profit, not net profit. To get $100,000 profit, you WILL need additional labor besides yourself, your spouse (even your kids). Labor cost, workman comp and insurance will take a big chunk out of the $100,000.
100% correct! Nobody will NET 100k per year doing manual labor solo (at least not until hyperinflation kicks in). It's a team effort and product/service diversity is generally a better idea too..
@@thatguychris5654 I know several farmers who do it conventionally.
@@thatguychris5654 That depends on the crop........
Insurance...must mean business insurance, or crop insurance? Your health insurance will be free if you have a family size 4 and making under $40k per year, there are ample subsidies. However once the kids are gone and you get older, it gets incredibly expensive, so be prepared for that. We were shocked at the cost.
Another really excellent video. You mention it is OK to keep day job at first. Excellent advise, and with that I would remind people that you have to have a strategy for health insurance before giving up a regular job. Second thought is, be very careful about rented or leased land. You can invest a fortune in building beds and building soil fertility on land you do not own, and owner can simply not renew the lease. It can work, but be careful. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Biggest mistake is not adopting out your kids after they lose interest in farm work. However you can extend their useful life by teaching them how to edit your video's.
😂
Based 😂
I think if we traded teenagers it could work. My teenager works very hard on a friend's farm but will do nothing for me personally without putting up an enormous fight.
Thank you so much for this wake up call to folks in love with starting small farms. We appreciate your practical and down to earth advice. All the best to you and your family.
I watched a composting video from No Till during a serious 3 week battle of Covid. It gave me much needed escape, and I promised myself that when I regained some strength, I wanted to finally start a small market garden. Since then I have moved twice, and finally bought a cute distressed house in the city that has a ton of water saving potential and a small hill that is begging to be terraced and farmed! I will not have the room or available sunlight hours to do a dense garden, but I do have a lot of friends who love to garden, and many vacant lots to choose from to buy and expand in the future. I'm thinking of doing a market garden co-op and starting an Urban Gardn Market in the middle of the food desert we have on the south side of town, as well as a compost station (in the vacant but heavily shaded lot behind me) for all of the uncontaminated yard waste of the gardeners! I have this channel to thank for the awesome inspiration and technical advice you give! ❤
I have a small backyard garden for my family of four and know the work that requires so I can only imagine how much hard work goes into a farm as a business. With that said, I would love to find a farmers market or small farm grower that is close to me so I can shop weekly and practice eating in season more. Most are a good 20-40 minute drive away but I think it is better for our health and I want to support local small farms and see that as a win win situation.
The romantic idea of following my grandparents who farmed for a living has turned into the cold water plunge of reality in the level of work they did living that way! They worked to feed a family of 7 kids plus have income from farmers markets. A handy labor force built into the large family model possibly added some level of productivity with minimal increased overhead but as kids grow and leave that strain comes back in time. The change in society where seemingly every product comes into the home wrapped in plastic from far off lands never seen has stirred this desire to be free of that dependency. Yet watching our two adult children go out to the world with jobs that stress them out and leave them feeling lost, I wonder if they may make the turn back and follow our lead. Time will tell.
Great video, thoughtful topic for sure! Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go work on our new greenhouse! 40 x 15 high tunnel doesn’t build itself ya know!❤❤😂 #farminglife
Very good video. Lots of good points to lower most people's unrealistic expectations. Reality is where we live. Thank you.
I'm in the early stage of reviving a 25 acre farm to grow fruits and vegetables on, so this was very helpful for me. I tend to get ahead of myself and come up with a way bigger plan then I can handle, so this last year was a learning curve for sure, especially once I started digging into the buidiness side of farming.
I'm with you.
Starting small and focus on limited crops. Establishing preplanted buyers, selling forward. I grew way more of some crops than others in my 1/4 acre rural garden. It only takes a couple yrs to focus on the best crops and how to maximize production. Much labor. If you love gardens but don't garden you probably only imagine it's a job you will enjoy. It's got to be in your blood. I've been looking for serious gardeners for 10+ yrs. I only see them on internet, 25 acres sounds like the Augean stables. But I'm ready! Best successes this year-marshmallow, eggplant, Roselle, walking onions, spaghetti squash. This vid has valuable info. Alert-gardening, farming is labor and trial/error intensive. It's a beautiful life, good food, 1/2 your day, most days outside, except when snowing or raining. Important to have a good partner/s. Critical to progress, grow the business. Find a business partner who is a grower, loved soil. No wannabes unless of course there's $$$ to make it worth while. Get a solid contract. Keep daily records. Talk is cheap. Run your business like a business. And another thing, no weekends off. 🍆
Love the video!! Yes new farmers develop land without the end goal on site:
*grow too many varieties
*truly don’t run it as a business.
*spread themselves too thin- start a project and finish.
*don’t think longer term- use perennial plants to help with shoulder seasons.
*rely on “friends” to buy produce.
*integrate animals into the farm way too fast.
*use the first year as experimental? Why not grow what you know.. hit home runs not bunts.
To add on to your comment about starting out. Unless someone is independently well off, a person will have to have a job for a while. Also if a person does have 20 acres & only use 1 acre, this can be a great way to have indirect income by renting out the land. There are "horsey people" that are constantly searching for pasture and will pay a good amount to rent it out. There's a couple of sayings in ag. 1st one is "If you want to have a way to lose all of your money, take up farming." The 2nd one is "If you think that professional gamblers are the riskiest income earners, they are not. Farmers and Ranchers take on the greatest risk because they are taking on a business that may or may not "make" at the end of the season due to all sorts of external influencing factors."
Regarding the last bit of advice, at least in the videos published on this channel, I see a lot of aversion to automation, which would be the key to scaling up. I think this gets associated with industrial farming, but it's important to remember that getting your farm off of pesticides+herbicides by going no-till is not the same thing as using a compact tractor to turn your compost, lay your compost, or plant and harvest. Obviously, you have to be careful with some of this, because you could get a planter/harvesters that disturbs the soil too much and undoes a lot of the benefits from no-till.
It’s always a weight issue for the ground using tractors and other machines
Excellent explanation. Most well put truth about farming I have seen for those beginning to farm or hobby farms, homesteading, as some call it. Regardless of what you call it, it is going to be work, and you have to enjoy hard labor to farm. Your rewards are what you grow and looking back at what you have accomplished. It is mentally soothing, but you also have to know how to mentally handle the not so soothing parts as well.
Well said I totally agree with everything you said when it comes to those on U Tube I find it hard to agree with most things they say. I recently heard Wednesday that you could have a full market garden for under $500 and only work 21 to 25 hours a week doing so I lol
That's only possible if you already own the land, have experience with growing at that scale, and already know who your customers will be. Creators like that don't mention those things.
I started watching your videos about a year ago and i have to say your wit and your character make it a blast every video. Your good at it my friend ! the infos great too yeah lol.... so keep up the hard work and thanks for all you share . Take care
Yes we started tiny, just testing the waters, not quitting my day job. :) We are still trying to answer important questions. What will sell? What parts of the market are already saturated? What is the best niche for us in our area? Just starting to expand a bit now, but still very much experimenting. Currently we are mostly just trying to pay for our chicken and goat habit. :D Hopefully by the time I don't want to/can't do my other job anymore we'll be able to turn a decent profit.
I absolutely love your videos ❤ thank you for taking the time to share the knowledge.
I found this as one of the most valuable videos you have produced.
Excellent advice, hard won.
Thank you.
Thank you Jesse. We are one of those new market farmers. We actually have an established dairy goat herd and also do chickens and have done those things for a decade now. Growing vegetables is what we are new at and also what we intend to start to sell at farmers markets along with pasture raised chickens. Our end goal is a commercial kitchen with a food producers license (Washington state) where we can offer our dairy commercially and produce a variety of products with ingredients supplied from the permaculture type farm with rotating animals (goat, chicken, pigs sheep) and growing beds with agnostic no till methods. All of this on 7 acres.
We have heard negative feedback from the USDA and others about what we see as diversity in products. But this to me is the one critical survival method that our business plan incorporates.
Jesse- What is your opinion on diversity like I speak of in the market place? It only matters what the USDA thinks because we are trying for an FSA loan to acquire the land we have been leasing to run our operation and live on.
My 2 cents are, I wouldn't even consider market gardening without a well and a shed with power. You have to have storage room, some form of refrigerator/cooler, and a wash area. 6th year of selling and only one year i could have almost gotten by with rain and heavy mulching. My sales got better as the year progressedthis year, because my garden survived the heat and drought where most people lost theirs. Also, there is a physical factor mentioned, but I'm under 1/2 acre gardening ground. That for me is maxed out. If I opened more ground, i would need to hire help. Great video! Love your work!
I agree. This was my first year doing a large farmers market and I tried to just do ALL the harvesting on Thursday afternoons and then process it and package it on Fridays, since I didnt have a cooler and it was extremely hard!
@ElderandOakFarm I get by with multiple refrigerators set at different temperatures, coolers, and ice packs. A walk-in cooler confuses me as an optimal vegetable storage temperature is so different for many vegetables, I can't wrap my head around one temperature fits all. But like you, I harvest and move vegetables very quickly if at all possible. In fact, I sell to the market on Thursday and Saturday with what I harvested the day prior. All other days go at half value to the grocery stores. I'm a gardener, not a vegetable storage warehouse, lol.
I have a farm business, doing okay with that, but wanted to expand to crop production. Been slowly researching over the last few years. Definitely going no till, don't have the machinery for it, plus the ground been tilled so much, it's going to be work to bring it back. My hardest challenge is actually finding compost. Who would have thought compost is that hard to get.
As someone just in the second year of farming I can take alot of things from this thanks!
I appreciate all the educational content you guys do,even if it doesn't recoup its labour value for you. Thank you!
Great video. I’m not starting my own farm (any time soon) but I have gardening clients that are starting too much and taking on extra costs which is noticeably hurting their relationship with their partner (who isn’t enthusiastic about farming). I’m glad you’re saving people stress.
I watched several locals start cannabis grow operations. Most had no experience growing plants of any kind. A year later they were selling all the lights,tents,fans etc. Farming is hard.
Another great video. Thank you.
Well, you nailed the first two.
We found that the tilling process is greatly influenced by the media.
We found that modern equipment is only needed when one is trying to grow more than that family needs for themselves.
We do it all by hand.
This is a mistake that I have made and see other business owners make as well, but people will not fall down at your feet crying "finally you are here to save us", hahah. Most people where I live still prefer supermarkets. I have to fight for every single client in my repertoire, while also trying to keep my vegetables happy.
Also, as Charles Dowding says, fresh vegetables are a luxury for most people, not a staple food.
Sadly they are a luxury for most. Personally I'm hoping that one day the bigger chains will open up at least a small spot in their produce sections for locally grown items. Something along those lines anyway. It's a win for everybody but only time will tell. Keep growing and keep seeing out new vendors for your products. One day it will pay off!
Thank you, I wish you a lot of success, I am watching you from Armenia 🙂
I've worked on a number of farms and one of the mistakes I've seen is not being open to adapting new or different methods, both from newer farmers and from multigenerational old timers. They might be struggling as a business and dead set on changing nothing, which is painful for more than one reason as an employee. The best way to avoid this issue that I've experienced so far is to hold a regular meeting, maybe once a week or so, in order to sit down and discuss things like what is working, what could use adjusting, observations that employees have made, and brainstorming solutions as a group.
Awesome information. All of your videos are great. I learn alot from your videos.
Thank you for keeping it real!!!
I tried to do it all. This is our second year, this year we're keeping it simple
All bang on!.. I'm not running a small farm, I'm just aiming to become less dependant on "the system" (with shrinking easily available fossil fuels, energy and implicit-energy is going to get more expensive, like winter cucumbers in the UK.. they require lots of heat to grow.. so cost is now up, availability is down.. I see this as a one way street).. have 1/2 an acre and am gradually building up our food production, organically. Most of this still applies.. I'd LIKE to not have to buy anything in, but thinking of this as a business in certainly the way to go, things that take a lot of effort and that I need little of, get bought im. I'm building out my rotation adding a new bed or two each year, slowly adding to the breadth of food. I did once run a very small engineering business, got ISO9001 accreditation, part of that was "continuous improvement".. that is IMHO the only way to run anything. You will never be perfect, but you can always do it better.
There are no "fossil" fuels. And they are definitely not ending. That's fear mongering by the elites we hear for decades now. It's a scheme of control. But congratulations for wanting some more independence
Great video. The first time I hear someone talk about all that in a way that makes sense. The money aspect is crucial and being so precise with numbers is very helpful. Thank you very much, Jesse, you are awesome.
Thank you for your videos
I also like your older videos too
The how to use XYZ ingredient.
Love watching your videos. Solid information and a goodly amount of humor.
Thank you for sharing your experience and advice!
Buying a Bcs tiller and attachments prior to a broad fork would be one of my biggest errors. The tiller is great, but it costs more.
thank you for sharing your wisdom. I always learn something from your videos as well as getting a laugh or two.
Love your book!
Omg thank you for being real, my dude
Saw this video. Loved it. Thumbs up. Like. I'll try to watch your back catalogue of videos so that you get the bonus from extra eyeballs.
I don't know your name sir, however I will say you did a phenomenal job with this video. It would be great if I could reach out to you somehow.
You were on point with everything you said I wish you the best and you're business sir.
Thank you for this.
Always awesome
3rd year on our lil farm and I'd do everything different 😂
I live in israel and its a very expensive place to live in, but sometimes you just have to follow your dream, even if you dont have enough capital or whatever. A bless chases a bless
Thank you!
I learned from my own experience that if something is hard and time consuming then I am doing it wrong. Not saying there is an easy way to do everything but I can stop doing things that hurt me or take up too much time and get calories from a source that is less taxing.
You mean I’m not going to instantly strike it rich with a row of planted turnips. I think you’re pulling my leg
Now, if you wrote 500 books, each on one of the intricacies of planting, growing, harvesting, and selling turnips, you could quickly be on the path to early retirement.
@@stevehatcher7700 just trying to be sarcastically funny. Going to try this market garden thing this coming year. Could only hope to do as well
@@EverydayJourney same, the humorous sarcasm
I think "YOUR AWESOME" and my hat doesn't fit and my wife stole my shirt. thanks for the summary jess
Need to learn as much as possible about irl farming and farming adjacent for research for the fiction book I'm starting.
Beautiful farm!!
Thanks for your honesty ❤
writing a book and "not recouping your advance": Technology today allows easier self publishing via print on demand and while traditional publishing gives 15% royalty per copy sold the self pub side can capture 70% for the author. Both paths require just as much marketing work as the other while your break even point is so much lower being an Indie Author.
the first point mentioned is to approach the farm as a business. question please, I would like to grow my own food. meat and vegetables for myself and my family with no intention for selling, is this possible?
Of course that’s possible! Thats homesteading and it’s a wonderful goal!
At 51, with 2 acres and no farming experience whatsoever. Dreams of a local market produce farm seem daunting. Since I'm a finish trim contractor with deep experience in home construction, maybe I'll build a few houses instead.
Great video, are you not interested in implanting a syntropic tree row and try? I think is the future of agriculture
You are amazing! Where did you get the myoga? I have been looking for this Japanese ginger. I appreciate for any info.
Thank you
Wow. I think I made every mistake that is listed in this video.. wish I watched this video first. lol
I thought I watched a video where you interviewed a gentleman who had been growing medicinal herbs up north of Mars Hill North Carolina maybe near Burnsville?
I was wanting to re-watch that video but I can't seem to find it. Could you provide me with the link?
Food for thought...
Hi there. I’m wondering what your thoughts are on seed and species of food in general are. It’s beginning to get increasingly difficult for me to find seed variety that produces healthy food full of nutrients. Our veggies and fruit are not packed with near as much nutes as they used to be
Step Zero to any farm: SPEADSHEET IT! Get areas, estimated yields, costs, and profits mapped out on to a spreadsheet and play around with different configurations. This wil 1) get you a great road map for your farm that you know has the highest chance of working, and 2) get you used to/fluent in spreadsheets. Keeping clean, precise records will make your farm more effecient and allow you to see the impact changes to your farm actually have.
I like pickles. And I ask my wife to buy me a copy of your book for Christmas. There. I hope this helps your revenue. Although I make absolutely no mistakes in my backyard gardening--that I will admit to--its nice to understand other peoples struggles.
I keep bees on friends farms. They are too expensive where I live.
Interplanting increasing disease and not reducing it just sound silly lol. Whats the science behind that? Ive always seen a decrease in disease from interplanting, when done correctly, because it makes the disease harder to spread. All of the issues you described are typically from overcrowding.
Americano way. Business everywhere. WTC style
Mình cũng có đam mê làm vườn giống bạn.
I thought farming/ranching was going to be easy money. Then one day my partner said we were going to need a bank account and I was like, WHAT?!
Thank you for this video it's good to know that these are "common mistakes" lol😅 cause i can relate to most especially the bills don't care your building farm #brokefarmer 😂😂 #pushingahead 😢😅
as the old saying goes 'one step at a time' and 'learn as you go' and 'slow and steady wins the race' and KISS 'keep it simple stupid' ...and I think you don't need to grow lots o different things 4-5 things is probably enough and easy if it is not comfortable and easy and SIMPLE ....you bit off more then you can chew
3:42 exactly what my dad did, moved us out to the middle of nowhere and then left my apathetic mom to take care of us while he stayed gone for weeks and months at a time working out of state. Destroyed the established garden by adding a ton of woodstove ashes to it cuz he read about it in a toilet book. Now im 30yo and tasked w fixing it all and building him a retirement plan for free. I can’t wait to get some decent yields and start looking for my own chunk of paradise
Soccer karaoke? Hahahaha
hello everything is fine ? My name is Kleber Vagula, I live in MG Brazil and I'm 32 years old. I work in an institution, I am an agricultural coordinator, my family is interested in going to live and work in the United States, what is the need for farmers who work with foliage and vegetables in the United States? Just being able to respond, I really appreciate it.
Most ppl don't want farms they want homesteads
Like any small business, except to lose for the first 5 years.
You already have a normal job, you already have a place. If you have a hope of succeeding then you'd be buying implements before you move and attempting to market garden before you even look at land.
Most new business run in the red fir the first 5 years. Have capital back up. (From a bill collector for 25 years)
We used multch like you recommended and burned our whole field by leaching all the nitrogen.
Sorry to hear you had an issue. Maybe describe what you applied and how?
Yes, sucks when my parents intentionally refuse to spare their small business skills they learned back in the 1980/
Before starting our farm I spent a few years listening to the No-Till growers podcast. One thing I remember hearing a lot was start small. Imagine what size farm you could handle and cut that in half. This was said over and over again. This I think is good advise, one I’ve taken to heart. We are now after three years growing looking at expanding the growing area but even this will be a slow planned out thing.
Where can I go and listen to podcast?
Hello! I'm Tom, a farmer in Vietnam. On my TH-cam channel, I share daily activities from my farm, providing a glimpse into life on a Vietnamese farm. Additionally, I demonstrate how to prepare traditional Vietnamese dishes. Feel free to visit my channel to explore the farming experience in Vietnam, and if you enjoy it, please consider subscribing for more content. Thanks for stopping by!" ❤❤❤
Thanks!
Thank you! 🙌
I'm not a farmer but I have started growing food. I must say It is very difficult to grow food successfully year after year. I highly appreciate small scale farmers and the hard work that they do to feed people. These farmers should be more respected and they deserve to earn more money!
Plant perennial trees and shrubs that can supply you with food you can store over the winter or to supplement your grocery bill. If your soil is horrible try raised beds.
1) Plant crops or ornamentals that generate a lot of biomass you can compost.
2) Try to think outside the box for ways to grow food that aren't going to break the bank. For instance, I have a large yard with soil that is clay mixed in with chunks of sandstone with little in the way of organic material in it. I will be planting a lot of plants that can make their own nitrogen and place these plants near food producing trees and shrubs to cut down on having to fertilize.
3) I am planting a Winkler hazel nut hedge, a hedge of elderberry, figs and comfrey. The elderberry, figs and comfrey I will be propagating from rooting cuttings or planting roots I am getting off eBay very cheaply. I have Callery pears which are invasive on my property so I am going to use the Callery pear branches and do air layering to create pear root stock and graft Asian and European pears onto the two Callery pears I have. I don't see any point in cutting down trees that are beautiful part of the year when I can use them.
4) Pace yourself and if you know any other gardeners ask if you can have any cuttings from blackberries or raspberries when they thin out their plantings. Most gardeners like to share plants and give advice about what works and doesn't work in their garden for your area.
5) Look for food plants that are also beautiful or are dual purpose like beets which have an edible root and greens.
Like what kinds @@tanyawales5445
I'm growing to feed my family healthy organic food. Cost and time are definitely a consideration, but experience and working with nature is priceless. Love your videos as they are always informative and fun!
I think growing as much of your own food as you have the space for is a no-brainer. Even if you're in an apartment, you can grow edibles instead of house plants. And it's going to take about the same effort as going to the market and buying that produce would've taken.
But the gentleman in the video is talking about farming. Farming is a business. Very, very different from growing your own food. I think that's the main thing this video is trying to impart.
It's like the difference between cooking dinner, and opening a restaurant.
@deinse82 Yes, I understand what the video was about and don't need it explained to me. I was just saying growing your own food takes a lot of effort, money, and time as well, living on 30 acres myself, I understand a lot of the complexity.
@@lulajohns1883 You are absolutely correct. Of course the scale, economics and stakes are at a different level from providing your own food to farming as a business but all his advice translates beautifully to the home gardener. Each aspect simply needs to be reframed according to your context. Quality of compost, learning the basics, how things grow in your garden, learning to interplant so it works, managing your spending and expectations, buying good tools that you'll actually use, planning your planting for a consistent harvest to avoid gluts and lean times, growing what you'll actually eat are just a few offhand points that apply across the board.
Home gardening is a business where you are your own customer. Approaching it from that standpoint takes one's efforts to the next level to grow the most food for your family and friends that you can.
@@deinse82I know you're right, the video definitely seems geared towards a farming business. BUT the title says "growers", not "farmers", not "produce sellers". So it is somewhat misleading.
A video showcasing all the things that went wrong during your current season would be awesome. It doesn't always go according to plan. Thank you for the video!
Might also be a nice way to vent some feelings lol.
I tell people to basically expect to fail comedically (if it weren't for the real money and labor at stake) for the first 3-5 years, and then you'll start to gain some traction; as long as you don't burn out or become bitter about it. Ideally, you might want a part time/seasonal job as well, to help keep things afloat an pay things off faster.
The best land you can start with is pasture or hayfield... any "conventionally" managed row crop acres is going to be horrid while it recuperates (we just ended season 5... and we can finally grow produce worth selling in any sort of quantity; and I had 10 prior years experience operating a small produce operation back home).
If you have any aspirations to have fruit... get it in now (that's going to take years before you get anything useful off of it). Plant rootstock now, and learn to graft for later (you can buy 750 apple seeds, with 90% germ test, for $15, and buds are about $1 a tree). I planted 4 - 50 foot rows of blackberries 5 years ago; and I had enough new starts off them to plant 1/4 acre. Same for raspberries. Strawberries fill in fast (couple seasons), but you have to stay on the weeds. Asparagus takes 3 years +/- to get going enough to harvest off of.
Gems of truth in this one for all small businesses!
Thanks for the video, Jessie. I'm not "starting" a farm but am working toward converting my backyard garden into a market garden with plans to sell vegetables (and other items) at local farmers' markets. So while the garden isn't new, the concept of operating it as a business rather than a hobby is. I appreciate your tips and insight on this and your other videos.
Not many youtubers explain where most of the money comes from.. you can grow hundreds of different veggies, herbs, ect. but people will buy the same few things. the best selling things for me have been: slicing tomatoes, bell peppers, and lettuce. I don't get many sales on herbs, kale, and hot peppers. Ive replaced all the space ive used for the veggies that dont sell with the ones that do, it works.
Just curious location you cater to?
Edwardsville, IL and surrounding areas.
If you're looking into market gardening and have some patience strawberries are very easy to sell and don't take up much space. The thing is you have to transplant plugs in the fall to get a spring/summer crop the following year@@ARUNKUMAR-gh3uw
Yeah in my area that is a mistake I see new market gardmers make about 25% of the time.
They grow things that other market garners aren't already selling. Nothing wrong per definition but a number of them have gone big on things market garners here don't usually sell and that supermarkets also don't sell. So customers need to try it for the 1st time, and it takes time to get people used to it (so ffs focus on what sells, everything else should be a limited scale experiment).
it's sad big-agro gets benefits that independent growers don't
Great advice. I farm 9000 sq ft of beds. A mini farm. You sure learn a lot. I sell a bit, but no business plan. To make a farm of any size practical, a business plan is essential. A big game changer came along when we asked ourselves why are we doing this, and we went right back to the orignal aim - we want to provide at least 60% of our own veggies which we would otherwise buy. And from that we realized that our primary customer is our own kitchen. From there many things fell into place, what to grow, when to grow, bed plans, business plan, etc. We can grow exactly what we need (or exaclty what this ground grows well and we eat it); the profit is not having to buy it, and the extra that we sell or trade is fun. And yes, I have a day job - totally essential is you want to farm like this unless of course you want to go totally off the grid and simply survive, which I very much respect.
I came here for the comment section on selling pickles. 😂