Need on farm money making ideas

Aquaponics for sure, I use to be a big contributor over at the forums on www.backyardaquaponics.com I suggest you go there to learn all you need to know.

Around here I am told the money-makers are berries (particularly raspberries and blackberries) and cut flowers. Fancy mixed greens can be grown pretty well year round and always command a high price. You really need to be growing the high-dollar items that few others are bringing to market in order to maintain an income from them.

If there is a USDA butcher available - meat sheep are not difficult to raise and lamb is very pricey. Heritage breed turkeys in a limited number for Thanksgiving and Christmas - you may be allowed to butcher a goodly number of them yourself as long as the customers pick them up at the farm. I have made a decent amount on them when I have done them. Hint - get a pretty high non-refundable deposit for the majority of the turkeys as soon as you can (I started collecting deposits when the poults were around 4 weeks old and pretty well likely to live)

Mary

With a decent greenhouse you can grow tomatoes, flowers, whatever and sell the small plants. Much less labor intensive than trying to grow 3A of produce. It is very seasonal spring/early summer mostly unless you want to expand into something like poinsettias for Xmas. It is easy, enjoyable 'work' for a retired couple. You will still need to market your finished product.

RustyDog, would you recommend a heated greenhouse to start the seedlings and then a hoop house/high tunnel type structure to finish them off. The reason I am asking is I was looking at FarmTek and I could get a decent greenhouse package for around $5 K and about the same for a large hoop house.

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IOWA

IMO farmtek is extremely overpriced.

Interview the chefs in Baltimore, see what they want to buy.

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The three divine teachers of man: worldly calamity, bodily ailment, and unmerited enmity, and there is but through God alone a deliverance from them. Maine Farmer's Almanac

They are only about 2 hours away so we can pick purchases up and save shipping. I will shop around though for sure.

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IOWA

http://www.growingformarket.com/articles/20071224_40

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IOWA

Do you mean, "It's a Long Road to a Tomato: Tales of an Organic Farmer Who Quit the Big City for the (Not So) Simple Life" by Keith Stewart? I tried looking for the other title and it came up with this one.

I put the above on my library list just incase as I love reading those type of books.

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You are confined only by the walls you build yourself.

I'm w/you, TMC.
Maybe some sort of cut flower-they go for $! stem.

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My book is out! Go 'like' it on FB:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Goo...83553391747680

If you take a look at Path to Freedom online, you'll see how they turned an urban yard into a business that supports all of them well. Over 6000 pounds of veggies in less than 1/10th acre. So yes, depending on what you do, you can certainly make a growing concern out of it.

I suggest a niche market of "Artisan Vegetables". Its very important you call them that because that is what chefs like to use as the term. I'd get some nice drawings or pictures, a full sized sales booklet full of glossy photos of heirloom breeds and dress up in a nice suit and go visit all the 4 and 5 star restaurants there.

Tell them you are looking to expand your Artisan Organic Fruits and Vegetable production and would like to see if they have a particular flavor profile or vegetable they might have in mind for their restaurant.

Be prepared to talk about the flavor profiles (I'd include a short list in the booklet) of various heirloom "slow grown to enhance the full flavor profile" tomatoes. Also have a page of peppers, rare squashes and unique beans. Have the dates they can be expected and be sure the first page of the booklet talks about Slowly grown, hand tended, artisan organic vegetables. Also their expected harvest times so chefs can create their menus and test dishes.

I just do backyard gardening but I do some nice heirlooms. I found out that I was giving away some of my more exotic tomatoes and they were being sold for $12 a pound to a restaurant as slow grown artisan vegetables using organic methods (no claim to organic labeling). No joke. I actually got pretty ticked and requested they stop and give them no more produce.

I get ridiculous offers for my chinese noodle beans here too.

The key to fine dining now is the native flavor of the ingredients. Mass grown, fast grown and breeds designed for durability and speedy growth do not have those flavors. Heirlooms that are grown slowly (organics grow slightly slower) have a full flavor profile.

If you do your homework first correctly, you can make a real go of it. Don't ask for contracts or anything, say you're looking to ensure you plant what chefs would like to work with. Then follow through. Plant some of them under lights and get them going faster so you can bring preview samples BEFORE the actual harvest for them to mess with and taste.

Believe me, any of the truly fine dining establishments out there will be glad to get them.

ETA: And don't forget some of the exotic carrots! We tend to think them humble but baby carrots fresh from the ground, especially things like the scarlets and strange ones, sell WELL. You can make a ton just in carrots! Also beets...ones with unique looks like the bullseye.

ETA2: Also, do this in January! In January chefs begin to miss the lovely produce of summer and tend to be most desirous of those things. And you'll need to get started in late january with seeds too. For the first year, you may wind up with a stand at the local farmer's market for most of your offerings, but this summer be sure to bring a freebie tray with beautifully arranged veggies to show off their colors to each of the restaurants for them to test. Believe me, you stick with it for a year or two and by year 3 you'll have more pre-orders than you can shake a stick at.

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Christy
Growing Human
http://growinghuman.blogspot.com

When wearing narrow lenses of hate and ignorance, is it any wonder one finds it difficult to see clearly? - Me

Take a look at what Will Allen is doing at Growing Power.

Excellent advice! You can pick and choose all kinds of things to grow but if nobody wants it you've wasted a lot of resources. I grow four things for one restaurant because it's what they need.

I have three high tunnels. I've been using them for years. Farmtek would be my next to last choice, Haygrove being last. I live in a snowy area. This is a long-term investment.

More land has been recommended a couple of times. First, be sure of what you're going to do. I make a very comfortable living on an acre.

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Robin

Grow asparagus - you can grow alot on a couple acres. Plant it once and you can harvest for many years. It's good for you too!

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Be a fountain, not a drain!

^()^
http://tubbsfarmstead.com/

MaineFarmMom
What roughly would be the maximum net income that one could expect from an acre?

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

Check out the book Micro-eco Farming by Barbara Berst Adams. Lots of stories about people farming small acreage.

I'm glad that aquaponics has been mentioned because that was my first thought for such a small amount of land. You should be able to equip a couple of good-sized greenhouses with an aquaponics set-up for what you have to put into this project. Might do three or four, depending on what things cost, but start small and grow bigger.

Definitely find out what people want to buy in your area. Flowers are usually a higher-dollar item than food (go figure), but some food items can make quite a bit on a small area of land, too. If you do go with aquaponics, you'll have to do some experimenting and figure out what grows best in your system, then see what will sell best out of that list.

You won't use your whole three acres for the greenhouses, though (at least not for a while!), so I would add some berries, asparagus, and some chickens. Layers would be easiest, but if you can manage the butchering facilities, meat birds sell well and can bring premium prices, especially if you raise the slow-broilers or one of the heirloom breeds. Heirloom turkeys can do well, too, but you don't have enough land for very many of those (don't have enough land for very many meat chickens, either, but if you are trying to bring together multiple streams of income they would be one stream).

In addition, or perhaps first on your list, you should raise some bedding plants and vegetable starts in the spring. Do some custom raising and raise some heirloom varieties that are well-suited for your area. People like to try something new that they can't get at Walmart!

Kathleen

ETA: Depending on how well it grows in your area, you could put in a patch of horseradish and make horseradish sauce to sell. Use the same facilities for jams and jellies later on, from your berry plants; put in about twenty or so beehives and bottle your own custom honey; Grow an acre or two of pumpkins and sell pumpkin butter; grow an acre or so of heirloom top-flavored and high-protein field corn and turn it into corn muffins....you get the idea! Value added, always.

It's hard to say without knowing what bills there might be, how much experience a person has and how well they manage business. I don't give out a $ amount anymore, too many people here think I'm making it up. I work alone most of the time now so my labor expenses are minimal. My equipment wasn't expensive. I have three high tunnels (most expensive was $3,600), a greenhouse for seedlings in the spring (mine and ones I sell), an older tractor, a Troybilt Pony and a Troybilt horse. The rest are hand tools. There isn't much I don't buy in bulk. In addition to seedlings and vegetables I sell raspberries for three months. I sell most of the seedlings through a store a couple of miles away.

My net took a hit today when the greenhouse roof gave way and a 1,000 sq ft high tunnel threatened to collapse under 16" of wet snow.

Great book!

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Robin