September 6, 2022 The Dream Ammended

This is the 2022 plan.

This production layout is four times what we are growing today.

Click on any of these pictures and see them larger.

The second plan was done in April 2015
we had found the edges of the place by then.

We had intended to plant peach trees at first
but there isn't enough heat here.

In November 2015 we decided to add themed 
gardens and tiny home cabins.
The cabins might not work here.

It was in January 2020 that I did the last design of the Master Planning image. Prior to that I did one about every year, usually in the dead of Winter when time is easy to find. A whole lot has happened here since the last time I sat down to think things through. It seemed appropriate to do it now, following so close behind the final inspection on the new house. Last year I didn't even think about this. The two years  since the last one of these was pretty full of house building projects.

The most important thing I had to incorporate in this new plan was the idea of a no-till farm. The beds we will lay down in the coming year will be very permanent and never again worked by machines. The gardens will be set up once and then fenced without access for the tractor. From that point it will all be hand work.  We took some trees down last year. This year we will get the remaining few down and begin laying out the final farm. With no house to build, there will be time to grow.

In May 2016 we had a good idea of 
what the land might support.
So we added long walking paths.

In laying out the gardens we are using a very specific repeating chord pattern in all of the gardens. Each 24 inch row can easily be used as two twelve inch rows with just enough room for one shoe comfortably in the middle. Every 24 inch row is separated by a one foot open space for walking traffic that doesn't compact the soils. Every two row set is separated by a two foot space for carts to carry stuff. This pattern uses  the land very intensively while making the rows easy to work by hand. As we harvest each row we recharge the soil with fresh compost, organic fertilizers, and a new mulch cover. No till gardening makes for light work,  few weeds, and much less watering, all while increasing food quality.  But you have to keep moving. And you have to plan ahead. Our new plan is four times the sixe of this year's production.

Second to this, and perhaps still a few years away, is the first wedding venue. We started our planning with the idea that we would eventually create a farm themed venue but a few things had to happen before we could begin. The first was a house, which is now nearly complete. The second was a real working farm,. This is the image we will build toward making this place a real farm. The first wedding venue will look much the same as a croquet pitch. Just a big flat grassy space at the front of the Farmhouse, level with the deck of the front porch, with shade cloth sails for a light cover. We will put in permanent electrical stuff and anchors for large tent rentals. We have a good design worked up for this whole thing, but first we need to get a few more things done. 

In September of 2017 we refined the image
a bit. But siting the house became an issue.

We have learned quite a bit since beginning the Farm Project in 2015. Today we have a house, water, septic, electric, water treatment and distribution. We have learned how to build a greenhouse so that it doesn't need yearly rebuilding. And we finally found a way to grow things in the soil we have. Almost all of our first level questions have answers and our farm produces much more than we need. Our dreams have changed, the goals did not.

We are well on the way. 

Once we had a home site identified in 2018, but before we figure out that trees wouldn't work here.
The Barn and Greenhouse would need more permit than we could get at the time. 

In 2019 we found the first layout that we could do.
We began building a Market Garden and a separated Kitchen Garden.

Our farm is economically self-sufficient today. Our Basset Hound breeding and boarding kennel is producing a healthy income on an ongoing basis too. We still need to put the final Kennels in, so we have some work to do still.

The 2020 layout was bit rough, but most of what we planned is working today.
We have changed little in this plan since 2020, we just had to fix the soil and
build a house.