A cool road trip today, to visit Tara & Michael’s farm, about 40 minutes from here. They moved onto the farm in the middle of last winter, and spent the summer gazing at their fields of hay while dreaming about…gardens of veggies! We had an energetic, intense conversation about ways to start a small-scale, hand-tended market garden from scratch. Cool! (If you look REAAAALLLY closely, you can maybe just make out Raechelle, way in the distance, taking a walk with T&M’s youngest son…) And what about Friday harvest, for the last farmers’ market of the season? Well, we did some root crops yesterday, and Libby and Lynn finished things off today, on their own—a first, me not actually being there for a harvest! The Tiny Farm Experience…expands!!! :)
“We had an energetic, intense conversation about ways to start a small-scale, hand-tended market garden from scratch”
While your still thinking about this conversation is there anyway we (your readers) could talk you into sharing some of your thoughts on starting a small farm from scratch?
I just have to say that I love your blog because it just glows with positive energy. No despair, gnashing of teeth, handwringing, just positive, forward looking and thinking, optimistic positive posts. Thanks for that. Whenever I check in here I feel better about the future.
Ali
Mike
Yes, I second Ali’s comment, always good stuff. Too bad you didn’t tape that conversation. There was probably a little gold mine in there somewhere.
Julie
I want to know about the conversation also. Please share your words of wisdom with your blog readers!
How many acrea’s does your friend own? We are going to start going to our farmers market this spring. It will be a lot of hard work but well worth it!
Our conversation was a “you had to be there” thing, only in that it really had to do with the particular place, people and situation. We discussed practical things like where to locate gardens, and the type and amount of work involved, and also, about the challenges and satisfactions to be had. It was intense because we were all excited!!
There’s a fair bit of pretty good discussion of aspects of tiny farming in, of all places, Tiny Farm Forum, including me going on at some length about some things. ;)
Ali: Thanks, that’s quite a compliment! I really am surprinsingly up about things, even as the world often seems to be kinda crumbling around us, with our help… :)
Renee: It’s about 30 acres, a lot of it in bio-reserve, woods and wetland. The initial market garden will be about 2 acres.