I would like to share with you the seven step process that can help you to start your farm and become successfully
🔎 Do your research
Before your start your farm looking at all different types tools you're going to need before preparing your farm for production training a design for your farm and a crop plan and even before you start growing your crops like do your research , start by first identifying who your ideal customers are ,find out what what they want , how much they want, find out what they are willing to pay for it, what are you going to sell your crops at the local farmers market or to chefs or to local stores or at the farm stand having clear idea of who you are going to sell and what you will actually grow for them is in my opinion one of the fundamentals when you get started too many people start this farm businesses the opposite way and they start growing a bunch of stuff and try to get rid of it after they stared growing their initial crops usually they follow the advice some where in the line of just the stuff you like to eat your self and have to say there is nothing wrong with that if you do it fun or as a hoppy.
business perspective and if you want make living from doing this you are got to be a little bit strategic about it you actually have go out there and start talking your potential costumers wherever that is possible go to your local farmer markets and look at what other farmers growing look much they are growing up specific crops like what do they have at the beginning of each day and what do have at the end of the day , look at their pricing their presentation customers service and the types of customers
they are serving and ask yourself like is the demand higher than supply or is the place separated do they sell imported produce only or strictly farm grown produce , having basic understand the supply and demand in your area will allow you to start creating a plan of approach maybe there is enough room for an other vendor at the market maybe you can target an underserved audience or maybe you can grow crops other farmers do not have for sale but there is enough of demand that makes it worthwhile
for you to grow , also have a look at the local restaurant scene go out there and start talking to some chefs to see whether they will be interested in working with local growers as then what types of crop they are looking for throughout the growing season as then where they get the produce from now and what they are willing to pay for it , how many times per week will they like that produce to be delivered have a basic understand of the demand in your area will allow you to grow toward estimated demand and not the other way around .
last thing you want is to be in the situation where you have abundance of a crop where there no demand for , this way you for sure end up with a very expensive gardening hobby having said that the process to find out about demand does not have to take you a very long time and its quite straight forward.
Make list with all potential costumers you area with certain radius of the farm , list down farmer marker, restaurant and local organic farmers.
some times you must contacted each individual potential customers to set ep meeting and to get yo know their demand , doing this before hand will give you a good idea of what types of corruption potential customers are looking for , from there you can then creating crop profiles and stat selecting crop you are going to grow.
other hand look at the rough estimation after demand of each individual crop once we had these estimates we then started estimate how profitable each crop would be in your area based on yield days in the garden and the inputs required to get from seed to finish product from there we were able to see based on our rough estimation which crops would be the most profitable to grow in you area but also was in the line with both the local demand and financial goals so
🔰 Design your farm
This step is all about creating a basic design of your farm , this is must if you want create that is well organized and optimized efficiency practically and ultimately profitability.
The first step in the design process of your farm is to create basement sector map. this map contain basically all the existing element on your land like tree, building and fence .also outdoor forces prevailing wind direction wildlife corridors potential thrust pocket, sun angle during different times of the year and the elevation of your land the way we did this on our farm was that we simply tool maps from our property from google map we got ourselves nice and big piece of paper we dreamed about ridge after land include all the element were already present on our property
once we had this initial map with the boundaries and fixed element on it , we needed include external force our land is dealing with so thing like the sun angle, wind direction elevation of the land , average ,monthly temperature and precipitation frost pockets potential wildfire areas and so forth taking all these thing into consideration during design process will allow you to create a resilient practical and efficient farm
For example after evaluating your land and create design you might realize that there is huge tunnel effect on the one part of your property that will cause potential problems with the crops you are going to grow there knowing this you can decide include windbreak there so you can reduce negative effect of the wind on your crop
or after evaluating your property you might realize that the lower of part your property is prone to flooding knowing , this you can to install drainage system or you cloud maybe potentially create an irrigation pond on
we must identified several key element we needed for the market garden include , plant nursery for the growth seedling , greenhouse for heat loving crops , season extension and irrigation system a tool shed, post harvestation and fencing and permanent growing beds
📊 Create a crop plan
This is step we are going to create a basic cropland once you have your basic design ready of you farm and you know roughly , how many growing bed you will have , you can establish crop plant that will ensure continued supply of crops during the growing season , if this first time you are going to create your cropland it can become quite overwhelming at the times so its best to take the quiet time when you are well rested so you can focus on the task at hand the way.
your crop production is slightly different than other farmers but the base principle are same we need make sure that we grow enough crop that will allow us to reach our financial goals , therefore we always with a financial target as our first step once we know much money we need to make ,we can now start breaking this into a production system that takes into consideration this goal.
🚞 Prepare your land for production
When it come to prepare your land first time you're got a couple options chance are that when start out you will likely have to deal with quite some weeds and existing vegetation that you would like to covert into a production area and the way you are going to approach it is going to decide whether you are going to be face lots of weeding or simple weed management practice down the roads
general term there three main ways you can use along with some variation to to convert a field of weeds into production area option
option number one and probably one the most familiar ways of preparing your growing area is called evading and tilling the soil with the tractor or walk behind tractor just using this option as a stand alone method is not recommended by tilling soil and plowing it d you will bring up the previously dormant store weed seeding the soil and create perfect environment for for seed to germinate.
option two is using the sailor to start of existing vegetation through process called occultation and depend on the types of existing vegetation you are dealing with , this type will have to be laid down any where between six to twelve month to be effective
option number three uses same principles of depriving the existing vegetation of sunlight but instead of covering up the ground with a dark thick initial layer of compost is lay down on the surface the soil without integrating , this process is called low deck approach.
🍅 Grow your crops
we grow crops in two different ways we start seedling nursery which we then trans plant out into field or
direct seed crops for each the methods we follow a different crop approach the , transplanted crops of your farm all get started dedicated nursery , here we can tail it toward the needs of small seedling and allow them to grow into strong healthy transplant.
for this process we use say people nursery trace these trace come in many different sizes and dimensions to suit the needs of the specific crops that are grown in it we filled up the trays with a high quality pre made potting soil but before we fill them up we make sure to moist in the medium bit we then fill them out compact slightly seed it cover the seed with final layer of potting soil water it down and we are done depending on the type of crop we are growing , we either transplant these seedling outside into their final location
🚛 Market and sell crop
once you are grown your crops its time to sell them to your customers if you find is step one marketing and selling aspect of your crop comes pretty natural if you do it correctly you virtually guarantee that you will sell your produce by the times your crops are ready since you already know what the estimated demand are with your potential customers by doing the initial market research the selling part becomes surprisingly simple though .
the wat market selling your produce depend lot on types of customers you are serving take it see membership for.
no matter what your market streams are promoting yourself and your farm are an important part in achieving success the way you present yourself the the way you talk, the promises make are important when it marketing and selling, and brand your message the values your stand , story your farm, name of the farm , the people you serve and people you don't serve , the way you present your produce the quality produce all these thing combined are what makes up your farm
this can be crucial role in the success of your farm the best way we can describe a brand is that he brand the personality of your farm when doing business other people whether you are selling some one local farmers market to restaurant.
🎵 Record and track
Most important step if you want to achieve success with farming is to keep track of everything create basic spreadsheet of your farm , whether its crop production related or sales related having basic spreadsheets for your farm is a must
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