i want to figure out how to make money from the land

[digitS']

BJ, I have stayed out of this thread and you have gotten good advice. It is difficult the say "do it this way and you will be successful." Obviously, if it was easy, a few million Americans would be doing it.

When I retired, then I really went to work! Nah, I'd been doing about the same thing all my life. The transition to selling directly to the public wasn't so difficult - except, I couldn't have done it by myself.

You have said that Texans are not very good at collaborating. I don't know if that is true but you may have a thriving farmers' market not all that far away and that market wasn't built all by one person's energy. Their very nature requires multiple market businesses and, just like the highway, there are rules to follow and not everyone can do just as they wish.

Those multiple businesses are what make a market an interesting place for the public. Remember them? Can't forget 'em if you want them to exchange some of their resources ($) for some of yours (your farm products).

Those market growers have a niche. Not everyone can show up with a truckload of sweet corn every marketday for 3 months and expect customers to show up. Well, maybe customers will - wholesale buyers. Can't do it that way, probably. You need to cut out ALL the people in the middle and get a retail price for your produce. What a difference in value!!

If you want to cut out the processors, shippers, and grocery stores, etc. -- that means you must do all that processing, transporting and retailing, yourself. It is a tough row to hoe!

You may be the best sweet corn grower in your neighborhood but that may not be the best thing for you to grow on your half-acre of heaven. High-value products are the ones that are the most perishable and often require the most processing. Like to wash leaf lettuce? Can you do it without breaking leaves?

I was "growing stuff" - forever. I began growing flowers commercially when I was in my 20's. I was in dozens & dozens of flowershops over the years. I worked with dozens of arrangers. Did I know how to make a bouquet? Maybe I should say a "bokay?" Sure - but, I wasn't any good at it.

I've never subscribed but there is a magazine called "Growing for Market." Search those shelves at the library for books by & about small farmers. Take what you read with a grain of salt but find something that you can be enthusiastic about.

Put a pencil on a piece of paper. . . Honestly, it is the easiest thing for you to do. The hard work will be turning that soil, bucking those bales, mucking out the corral. Put the pencil on a piece of paper. Search out the information -- schedule of production, retail value . . . your eyes are glazing over. Get it down! You can have fun out there with the soil/hay bales/. . . etc. Do your homework.

It is out there. A laying hen eats about .25 of a pound of high-nutrition feed every day. A dual-purpose hen eats about .33 of a pound of high-nutrition feed every day. What does your feed cost per pound? Will your lower production hen's eggs be valued at .08 pounds of feed per day?

Pie in the sky is for the blue sky outdoors. Stay at that table until you've got numbers that make sense on that paper, on many pieces of paper.

Maybe you can get caught up in someone's dream and do fine. There may be a partner out there for you. You have some clear-eyed ideas in this thread. It would be best if you can take one of them or come up with another - and make it your own. You know how it will be with any crop -- it will take 12 months before you can start again. Sometimes, you will need to have 24 months of enthusiasm to get you thru.

Steve

 

[bj taylor]

I never imagined I would get such wonderful input on this. first, THANK YOU! I'm printing this all out because I need to absorb all this info & that takes me time. I realize I'm in infancy stage of figuring something out. we've got about 60 acres, two stock tanks & lousy fence that wouldn't hold a senior citizen gelding. I've got 3 acres of super-fenced (the goats stay in). I'm thinning the goats. they've served their main purpose & I'm cutting them in half. I seriously hate feeding animals w/no return. I'm a little on the old side, but I can still do some work. I will take ALL y'all's advice & work to make a plan. thanks again.

 

[so lucky]

BJ, is there a market for goat meat in your area? There are several goat farmers around here. The one down the road has a llama for a guard animal. In the spring they get a mess of little goats, then grow them and sell them. Since you already know how to take care of goats, the trick may just be to find your market.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

maybe you could do something like rent out a portion of your land to someone who likes to grow? a friend of mine does that with her former pasture land. this way she can still claim the tax break for keeping her land for agriculture use.

tomatoes don't seem to be to hard to grow for me, not sure how well they grow for you down in TX. since tomatoes don't easily cross pollinate you can save seeds from them year after year. i've seen people selling seeds online that they save from their plants. tomato seeds are easy to harvest and can fetch a huge price for as little as 10 seeds. you could do the same with some beans or flower seeds. some perennial plants i've grown over the years sell well for me when i've done yard sale or flea markets, i've been able to sell some of my perennials for about $5 or more per pot-usually hosta, iris and daylilies. some herbs are very easy to get started and grow, i find dill, lemon balm, parsley and basil i don't have to do much to get those to grow, just throw them in a pot or in a patch of ground, give it water on occasion and sit back to watch it grow till they are ready for harvest! dill and lemon balm will reseed themselves freely if they have the right conditions. seeds from these herbs are also easy to collect at the end of the season (except parsley which is biennial).

see if you can find some books on seed saving. i know there is at least 1 for sale i've seen advertized in garden catalogs. maybe you could do a book exchange to get books you're interested in while getting rid of any books you no longer need or want on your shelves.

 

[Nyboy]

Here in NY goats milk soap goes for about $10 a bar.

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

You may also want to take a look at the "laws" if you decide to sell anything that's been processed. I know to sell canned goods you have to go to canning school, although this could be a different story in Texas.

 

[897tgigvib]

Some more thoughts BJ.

60 acres needs a name. Folks have names for their places like your that sound like:

Sleeping Dog Acres
Rainbow Flowers Community Farm
Cooperative Farm Central
Elmville Farmers Market Coop
Whole Foods Supply Local
Taylor's Biodiversity Acres


Maybe you could, with 60 acres, start renting out portions of it for folks to have gardens on, other portions could be boarding for horses.

If say you rented out sections for folks to garden on, those would be places with good soil and not shaded very much. (Afternoon shade down there in hot Texas would probably be a good thing). Those sections would need to have water spigots, perhaps with a meter if you have to charge for water. That would mean some simple buried lines. ABS black plastic is least expensive per length I think. Probably at least should do simple soil tests for ph and npk.

Sections rented out for horse boarding, or other animals, would need some good fencing, troughs, cover for feed and hay, and some simple stall barn setup in addition to good water supply.

Might need a "hand" working for you, which would cost the least if you had some kind of living quarters. Once you are hiring one person you gain community prestige. Be surprised, there are folks who do that.

I know. A big jump off the high diving board.

Ya know, I'm wondering if you could do it as a centralized set of community gardeners doing a local farmers market and OR maybe a roadside stand.

It's an open book!

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

Good luck with the name! There are so many farms out there! I'm sure you can come up with something... Armadillo Acres?

 

[bobm]

I never imagined I would get such wonderful input on this. first, THANK YOU! I'm printing this all out because I need to absorb all this info & that takes me time. I realize I'm in infancy stage of figuring something out. we've got about 60 acres, two stock tanks & lousy fence that wouldn't hold a senior citizen gelding. I've got 3 acres of super-fenced (the goats stay in). I'm thinning the goats. they've served their main purpose & I'm cutting them in half. I seriously hate feeding animals w/no return. I'm a little on the old side, but I can still do some work. I will take ALL y'all's advice & work to make a plan. thanks again.

BJ, What type of soil, hard pan, rainfall, temperature, availability of irrigation water, trees, etc. on your 60 acres? What is the carrying capacity per acre for each species of animal for your land? What grows well in your immediate area ? I own 20 acres in Cal., it was open range land for a hundred years. About 20 years ago it was subdivided into 20 acre parcels. I built a house and horse barn with all the equipment needed for Artificial Insemination , etc. . Was doing pretty well until the bleeding hearts got a law passed to close all horse slaughter in the US. The value of horses dropped to next to nothing literally overnight. People turned their horses loose anywhere that they could dump them as the cost of feed for the year was far more than what the horse was worth. The BLM has thousands of the so called " mustangs" in feed lots with the bill into the millions of $$$ going to the public. One can go to any one of the BLM facilities and buy any one of these "mustnags" for $25.00. I sold out 4 years ago and gave away 6 geldings as they had virtually no value. Just 5 miles from my ranch, there is a 360 acre cattle ranch... all that land can carry is 10 cows and their calves since the water wells in the area are 400' - 600' deep and only yield 3-6 gal. Many wells there contain so much salt that are then useless. So, I would do as much homework as you can as Steve suggested as possible before you do anything.

 

[bj taylor]

good grief! the ideas are amazing & scary. I love the idea of helping/teaching people how to grow their own food. it would be so great to kinda do it like I've seen on tv in great Britain. they have these coop things going on. I'm sure they're here too, but I've never seen one in action. raised beds w/people claiming their own raised bed & growing whatever they wanted. the water would be an issue (in Texas, it always is). the soil here is brick hard clay & alkaline. raised beds are the only way to go here. if I could also morph into a coop thing w/raising animals like chickens & rabbits. I'm going to have to think about this a lot & do a lot of researching
a name....hmmm, how fun is that? a name