I wanna be a small scale farmer - What’s most profitable?

Here, take some advice from Zimbabwe's ex-President...

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I thought of blueberries. Have no clue what is realistically profitable though.

I think you would have to have realistic selling avenues planned out first before you even start.

I heard some people doing well with fresh greens for boutique restaurants.

Another thing to think about is labor and work/manpower per dollar earned. Too much processing work and manpower equals difficult management.

Nursery.. Trees and plant's..

Aloe Vera

Chickens, especially the egg producers, lots of food and fertilizer.

Otherwise go to your local farmers market and see what they are growing, pick the same or different crops and barter to learn from them, good luck.

Ginger root

Bunnies.

Ask a fruit and veg seller, seriously

Anything that fruits low to the ground will increase your profit margin. I suggest Something popular like strawberries to recoup the costs of the shrink ray treatment. A few Rc scale farm vehicles wouldn't go astray either. The saving's on clothing, food and tool's alone should ensure profitable enterprise let alone being able to
accommodate yourself in a tiny home filled with the most decadent dolls house furnishings for next to nothing.

Depends of t he region you are in. You should make a case study about as many vegetables or fruits as you can in your region so you can see the different price actions.

Give growing garlic for profit some thought.

Been doing exactly this for the last ten years. Whatever you think you're going to do be prepared to do what your land tells you that you should do. If you want to read about how we took an old piece of beat up ground and close to no experience and turned it into the best life you could ever live add .com to the end of my user name and dig in.

Good luck and never forget, only the flexible survive.

Thread: I'm a family farmer ask me anything

I don't think it's legal to use the word organic unless you pay a lot of money and jump through bureaucratic hoops to get certified. USDA owns that word.

It's not worth getting certified for the small operation but you can say "grown without chemicals " or something to that effect.

Also look up Mike McGroarty's Backyard Nursery stuff, he has a lot of good videos and other information about growing and selling ornamental shrubs and perennials and small trees. You could use his information to produce and sell perennial food plants for permaculture, if you wanted to specialize. Well I'd call it edible landscaping instead. Or home orchard.

micro greens

Hops

Chickens

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"micro greens" would be an idea worth looking at for small scale grows, restaurants are always searching for good suppliers~

Yeah, it is indeed a good list. I was going to say everything on there except Butternut squash...If you can grow it in your location, Tumeric and Ginger.

Mushrooms really need climate control to be anything other than extremely seasonal. But yes, they can be very profitable if you can grow them regularly. I'm working on Lion's Mane and Reishi myself. You need to be super patient. Shiitake has worked out for me. But the other two have shown us nothing. lol. Aquaponics is really good for leafy greens and a lot of herbs.

Exactly correct. The USDA owns the term organic and the hoops are extensive. Don't bother.

You can use the word organic without certification if your sales of that product are less than $5,000 per year.

Intensive use of the land - not chemicals - will let you grow abundantly on small areas.

think a 30 by 50 FOOT vegetable garden that produces enough vegetables to feed 10 adult VEGANS year-round, harvest to harvest.

this is a real garden. Fenced in, rows arranged to maximize planting, covers on the ground to stop weeds.


it works

I would also suggest that you look into Bee's! I will not say there is a huge profit in them- but, they are needed for pollination of plants! They LOVE the flowers of the garlic plant- and will pollinate them to grow more seed- then you can make specialty items like garlic infused honey! lavender is great too.. and has many uses that can be sold.. and if you are allergic to Bee's (as I am), they are still worth considering.. I wear an expensive suit and gloves to protect me from stings (but it does happen, so now I keep an epi-pen). I just harvested 21 pounds of honey from 5 frames- I have 15 more frames to harvest and quite possibly more-- look at the price of RAW honey in your local area.. here is is between $5-$8 per pound. Side note on honey, a quart jar is about 3 pounds- All of what you are wanting/planning will be costly to start- so do not quit your job yet!

1-1-1-1-1

is the usual row of plants, space to walk, another row of plants....

instead ...

1-11-11-1

you only need to be able to reach a plant row from one side, so double them up.


even in this small example, you get an extra row of plants.

Bump , 4 info ...

Largely depends on you and your communities needs. Are there farmers markets? What is popular there and what is missing. Heirloom varieties are good to market in local settings. Mushrooms are great to get in, just make sure you have a market. Surely grow what you eat, and maybe look into forming a CSA and go from there. Slow growth is not a bad thing, it allows perfection so dont rush it.

I plan on trying garlic, ginger root, and tumeric...

small, profitable, and can be shipped instead of needing to be sold locally.

currently working on more raised beds and a swale system for low(er) maintenance growing.

Slow growth is good because the biggest key to growing anything is good soil. Building up the soil with organic matter will pay the biggest dividends down the line. It should be your first priority, and your long term priority.

I would advocate a sheet composting/permanent mulch/no till method to anyone. Read Ruth Stout's books for deep inspiration.

You need to be able to sell the things you produce!
There are lots of videos,
try looking at all the Market gardeners videos.
Those are about planning the farming to have several kinds of produce every week like from May-june till late in the fall.