Small Scale Ag.

Sorry if this ends up being a long post...

A few years ago I had read posts and excerpts from a book a guy on this forum was writing on small scale agriculture. In the years since then and this was dependent on getting my 135 fully functional I've seriously considered actually starting my own Market Garden operation to help pay for my school loans now that I am going to finally also be graduation from college this spring.

I'm thinking about planting about an acre or so of sweet corn and maybe up to an acre of vegetables to sell and augment whatever I'm making at work in case I can't find a higher paying job right off the bat.

If this works out I am seriously considering making an offer to Mom/Family Trust on taking over the two fields that are being farmed by the guy that we lease to now that are seriously becoming eroded and depleted from the corn/soybean rotation.

In terms of equipment I have the MF 135 Gas, a three point disk, bush hog and harrow-gator spike tooth harrow. I am planning on getting a Ford 101 2x14 (Blue) plow this year. I am going to start my plants to cut down on costs and to allow myself greater flexibility in selecting the hybrids. I also have access to a non-potable well if I have to irrigate.

I'm hoping to make around 2-3k.

Are there any really good books or websites I can go to? I live in Licking County, OH and my Ag Extension Officer retired and there is no word on a replacement due to budgetary concerns. I've called the Ohio Farm Bureau and they don't know how to help me and I've checked the OEFFA which fits most of what I'd like to do at home except I'm not as hardcore on the organic.

I just care my produce is fresh and local with minimal chemical inputs.

Any thoughts or suggestions or tips? I know the equipment I currently have is right sized for the job. I know after our monsoons this past year how susceptible I am to weather, I just want to be proactive instead of reactive.

Thanks,

Christos

Around 'here', every single town has developed a 'farmer's market' within the last 3-5 years; anything like that around you? Most folks who participate are very open to sharing ideas.

Yeah there are a few local ones. I've been to the one in Granville, OH and it's swamped on Saturdays.

Check with friends/neighbors on sweet seed corn. I'm not sure if you can buy in bags small enough to only only an acre. You will also have to figure out a way to spray your sweet corn to keep the worms out of the ears. Hopefully, one of your neighbors will do yours while doing his own for the cost of insecticide and nominal labor and machinery cost.

Did you think about CSA? or giong through a farmres market.
I'm retired and grow about 2 acres of cut flowers for a farmers market near here.
That small plot pays the bills and gives me a little spanding money. Life is good.

For seeds check Albert Lea Seed house, they will sell in all quanities

most seed catalogs sell sweet corn seed in multiples of 10,000 seeds- so a little more or less than half an acre depending on pop. but i"d say you pretty much would have to get your own sprayer for sweet corn. it *can* be done without herbicides, but that"s a lot of cultivating, and you mentioned concern about soil degradation. insecticide is essential if you want worm-free ears, and with that, timing is everything. if you get your neighbor to spray for you and he is a day or two late, you"ll have worms in a week or two when you pick. i wouldn"t risk a crop on someone else"s schedule.


as for equipment: you"ve got a basic start. you"ve got nothing for planting, transplanting, fertilizing, or weed control. corn planters are common. depending on what particular vegetables you"ll grow on the other acre, you may or may not need more than a corn planter.

i don"t mean to rain on your parade, but i know all about the dilemma you will be in: too big to do things all by hand, but not even close to big enough to pay for all the equipment to do it mechanically. one thing to consider in choosing your crop mix (other than marketing) is can you adapt your current equipment to work with other crops? will you have anyone else to help with the work? for something like a transplanter you need at least 2 people.

the most important concern is marketing. you need to produce something for which there is ready demand, and then meet the demand. growing beautiful crops doesn"t do much good if they rot in the field while you"re trying to sell them.

you mentioned two acres of vegetables. how much land all together are you considering taking over? what will you do with the remainder?

good luck, it"s not easy, but it"s good. ask away; we"re all here to help.

I would suggest adding some row hippers to your arsenal for vegetables. You mentioned heavy rain last year and having crops up high can be a make or break. A tip of the hat for going in the chemical free direction. It can be more work at times but it's worth it for the quality of produce. There are many seed catalogs that carry organic and non gmo seed in quantity for smaller market farms. Just search organic seed and you'll get everything you need. Eliot Coleman's book "the new organic grower" is good to help get started. It deals in depth with small acreage organic farms. There are also some good videos on you tube dealing with organic/small scale cultivation. I think searching vegetable cultivation should bring them up. Sounds like you have realistic goals and enough equipment to get it started. Good luck putting it all together.

Check for work from Booker T Whatley of The Tuskegee institute, he had done some research about small scale labor intensive agriculture being an economically viable alternative for earning a living. I did a term paper during my senior year of college proposing to take some of my parent's farm small scale. About the time I graduated college a young man about my age took over a 10 acre field from his family's place and did sweet corn and pumpkins, later adding strawberries, A friend of a friend knew him and claimed they were earning more on the 10 acres than the rest of the 80 I've been out of college for 20 plus years I went buy this place 4-5 years ago it has grown to quite an operation, it now has fruit trees, green houses and a farmer's market barn they sell plants in the spring and hay and straw by the bale and bagged feed to folks with horses. Also contact local colleges and schools some have eat local programs and are willing to buy locally grown produce to use in their food service operations.

Christos I can give you some Golden Bantam open pollinated sweet corn seed from my corn patch last year. I saved several dozen ears and it is way more than I will need to plant my patch this spring. I live south of Columbus but work in Westerville. Let me know how I can reach you if you are interested.

I just looked at my seed packet from last year and it is actually 'Improved Golden Bantam' variety which is listed as 75-82 days to harvest. Google it and you can read about this variety to see if it will work for you. I planted it last year around the first week of May in some very wet conditions and it all came up nicely.

How big are those two rented fields? 1 acre each or a thousand each?

They"re about 20-25ac combined. My
farm is 160ac with about 20ac wooded.

Just follow responding via email. How far south? Mayer is my servicing dealer in Jeffersonville.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

Christos

You will have a hard time selling Golden Bantam corn to customers.There are so many new varietys of sweet corn that are far better.We plant a small plot of old time corns for our own use just to compare the to new types.My wife and I have planted a large garden for over 50 years now.Its a hard way to make money.We have always sold corn road side when we had extra.

An acre of sweet corn would be hard to sell roadside here.You would have to haul it to a city farmers market.If your land is worn out you are in trouble.Reading the seed catalogs in January and planning a large garden is great fun,Spraying corn in the burning August sun is an other matter.Writers paint a rosy picture of market gardening but leave out the ear worms, root worms,smut, skunks, raccoons and birds.Early frost can ruin a crop thats ready to pick.Fertilizer costs are very high and growing with out it is stupid.Market gardening takes large amounts of hard hand labor.We had a nice potato crop last season but sold little a 1/2 store prices.Most went into storage and I wont have to buy seed this spring.You had best start small and get educated.

Watch and see how many people are buying.The farmers markets here are very high priced.

I'm up in Stark County Ohio. We have a farm stand and greenhouse that is just like what you want to do.
Send me an e mail. I'll be glad to help you out where I can.

(quoted from post at 04:57:12 01/12/12) An acre of sweet corn would be hard to sell roadside here.You would have to haul it to a city farmers market.If your land is worn out you are in trouble.Reading the seed catalogs in January and planning a large garden is great fun,Spraying corn in the burning August sun is an other matter.Writers paint a rosy picture of market gardening but leave out the ear worms, root worms,smut, skunks, raccoons and birds.Early frost can ruin a crop thats ready to pick.Fertilizer costs are very high and growing with out it is stupid.Market gardening takes large amounts of hard hand labor.We had a nice potato crop last season but sold little a 1/2 store prices.Most went into storage and I wont have to buy seed this spring.You had best start small and get educated.

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I'm glad we don't have all those problems out here...last year I picked around 18,000 ears and sold it all roadside. Customers were still begging for more. We have a reputation for our sweet corn and can sell it for $1 a dozen more than the competition down the road. I don't spray, use mainly cow manure (used less than $200 in commercial fertilizer on the whole operation last year) and the coyotes keep the skunks and coons out of the fields. Sweet corn is one of the easiest crops that we grow, but my arm gets a little tired by the time the 7th planting is picked! I agree that veggies are labor intensive....if you aren't into long days and no time off in the summer, this isn't the job for you.

Know anything about livestock?? Freezer pigs/beef around here is a pretty nice supplemental income. We have people knocking our door down right now wanting half hogs. A friend of ours raises freezer beef and has a waiting list about 3 months out to get one.

It's a little more fussing around than selling at market, but the money's a lot better and it's nice to see who's eating the pork we produce.

Our neighbor raises sweetcorn on the side, he said he was going to quit when his youngest son left for college because it was too much work for him alone..... that was 3 years ago. He can't give up the extra cash I guess.

Good luck.

Tim

I don't sell it myself but I thought what I grew was delicious.

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