I’m lucky to own/operate a small farm I live on. It doesn’t produce almost any real money for me but it serves as a good collection of hobbies/food. My primary income is industrial and doesn’t scratch that itch. But, it pays the bills and affords me a schedule that let’s me maintain the farm. So, what would your ideal small farm setup look like?
Potatoes. Lot of potatoes. Good yield, not a lot of work, long conservation, lot of way to consume, vodka friendly. And you can sell excess easily I think. And also parsley and garlic. Good to add with potatoes.
Potatoes are great!!! Easy to grow and you could even just do it in a bucket if you’re short on space.
Oh yeah, love potatoes!
I do have a small farm (though it’s still not anywhere near being a primary source of income).
- jalapenos
- anything hotter that will grow up here (I need to get a heated mat for starting seeds)
- sweet peppers
- tomatoes
- cucumbers
- kohlrabi
- various beans
- carrots
- beets
- potatoes
- various varieties of cabbage
- hakusai (Chinese cabbage in English, IIRC)
- bok choi
- eggplant
- broccoli (regular and stick)
- cauliflower
- kabocha
- other squashes
- various herbs
- radishes
- blueberries
- biwa (loquat)
- ume (plum)
- kaki (persimmon variety)
- onions (both Japanese and yellow, white, and red)
- okra
and I’m sure more I’m forgetting. I don’t use chemical pesticides so a lot of the brassicas don’t end up doing well. It’s also why I gave up on corn because it will not do well without pesticides here. I live in northern Japan but coastal so I have more moderate weather. Still, peppers don’t like to do anything naturally until July or August and don’t do well in our rainy season (which we are still in this year, unfortunately)
Fantastic variety there! Based on your name, is your primary source of income an engineering discipline? I’m a mechanical engineer so that would be a pretty funny coincidence.
Yep! Software engineer in my case.
Fantastic!
The software dev -> farmer pipeline is real.
Goats, pigs, your mom. But I’d need a few hectares for the latter. 😁
Fuck you got me
What a coincidence! That’s also what your mom said.
Ok, I will see myself out now.
Strawberries. They are the best taste to effort and cost of what little grows here in the north.
Potato is an option but they are cheap at the store.
Peppers and chili is an option but they require a greenhouse to stand a chance.
I’d not bother keeping animals unless I intended to make it a bigger part of my income. Can’t just fuck off for a week and do something else. Chickens would be the first contender if I did though
Strawberries are fantastic. I planted some last year and was really bummed that I didn’t get to eat a single one. Then this summer, we had wild strawberries ALL over thanks to the greedy critters pooping seeds all over. This year I finally got a handful of delicious, perfectly ripe berries and the critters ate the wild ones. Perennial, self-propagating, and delicious. What else could you want?
Apples and Bees. Although where I live there’s plenty of orchards and they produce some stunning Honey. So it would be more of a personal thing where I’d produce apple cider and meads for the long winter nights.
You could open a whole restaurant chain with those.
How far apart do you need to plant the bees?
3 bumblebums wide ?
cannabis
So much of it. Also shrooms. But eh, all of that can be done in a closet these days.
But honestly, just eke out an existence as a cannabis grower is my dream life.
Dank, beans and chilis.
Goats (milk, cheese, lawn care), alpacas (wool), and maybe a few bee hives for honey to make mead. But I don’t know how to properly care for any of these creatures so it’s best I leave it to those who do.
I would just extend what I am trying to do with my yard to make a food forest. So some more perennial fruiting and nut trees and perennial berry bushes. Really try the permaculture thing with lots of little harvest instead of a few big ones.
I have been loving growing herbs both culinary and medicinal. My yard gets enough to craft remedies for my should but it would be a great way to make some cash if you get some perennial herbs set up for regular harvesting and drying. I might try to sell calendula but I would really need to get good at starting from seed. But there’s money in that.
I suppose you could call my place a small farm.
We got 4 runner ducks that lay eggs like crazy and keep the bugs down for the garden.
Last year raised 10 turkeys for meat.
For fruit: Strawberries
Blueberries
Blackberries
Thimble berries
Salmonberries
Elderberries
Apples
Cherries
The garden:
Potatoes
Leeks
Peas
Green beans
Collard greens
Mustard greens
Kale
Brussels sprouts
Broccoli
Zucchini
Tomatoes
Sweet potatoes
Radishes
Beets
Didn’t have success with everything and most of those are still going.
I also harvest the stinging nettle that grows all over the property. There’s also crayfish in the creek on the property.
irish wolfhounds
They are beautiful but such short lifespan that I couldn’t deal with it. I’d have a kennel of borzoi to guard my alpacas and maybe a couple of sheep dogs to keep all said in check.
Probably what I’m gardening now, but more? Tomatoes. Strawberries. Pickling cucumbers. Jalapeños.
Figs. Straight figs. They’re delicious, they sell for a decent price because finding ripe figs at the supermarket is practically impossible, and they’re easily propagated by cuttings, which sell for a decent amount of money.
I love figs so much.
Next is corn, but not sweet corn. Field corn , what’s used to make corn flour, masa, grits, etc. there are many varieties, like Blue corn, purple corn, and red corn, all of which are healthy and taste fantastic. You can use purple corn to make chicha morada, a Peruvian drink. Just keep in mind the kernels are seeds and therefore representative of the two parent plants. If you plant different types together, like blue and red, and they cross pollinate, the resultant corn kernels will be a variety of blue, red, and hybrid blue/red.
I’d love to be able to grow what I eat every day:
Onions
Carrots
Broccoli
Spinach
Brussel Sprouts
TomatoesChickens
I have no idea how to do this, and I don’t think I’d be very good at it.
Chickens are pretty easy as long as they have access to the outdoors. Keep topping up the chickfeed, keep any foxes and cats away, and they’ll be OK as long as the climate is on your (their) side.
I would add sugarcane to the list. Its juice is pretty good and it’s a “plant and forget it” type of crop. Just don’t overdo it. The seedlings from one single sugarcane are more than enough.













