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| Lilly's babies are a week today |
This is the fifth Summer of trying to become a Market Garden Farm. This is a specific term used to describe what those guys you see at the Farmer's market do for a living. And so far . . . it has been a winner when it comes to learning how to grow things, but a real loser when it comes to making a profit. We have been working hard to improve the planning and execution of our plantings. We have learned how to make fertile soil without chemicals, make the ground ready without tilling, steward the soil and the plants from seed to compost. In fact, if the only goal was to grow things, we have done it. But as a business it has been a real buster. So we have decided to change things up.
There is always a Grand Plan, something which was in place long before we found this place and built our home and business. The bare bones of the Grand Plan was to find some way to build a home and business, which makes money, without too much effort. And it's not as if we are afraid of working or there has been no success either. But this past week, when we were sitting vigil over our newest litter of beautiful baby Basset Hounds, we had time to talk things over and do a bit of math. Here is the short answer to the question of Market Garden Farming: If we are doing well, which we are; and we have food to sell, which we will eventually have; and we sold every speck of it at two dollars a pound, which we cannot do for many reasons; then we will make a net profit of minus two thousand dollars without paying for the labor it took to lose that investment.
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| Our ducks have kept the bugs down |
So farming, as a business, something which has always been a part of our next step of funding our next investment, for five years now, has pushed us in the wrong direction even if we did learn so much. And if we scaled the whole thing up to every inch of space we would only go farther behind in other parts of the Grand Plan. So it is time to change things up, free up the time and money, and move forward. But this takes a bit of time and effort to figure out the next move and we still have a lot of crops in the ground to sell this year, even if we do so at a net loss. It is no use to leave what little money there is on the table, about thirty-five cents on the dollar (best case).
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| The problem is not growing things. |
Some of the things we do pay off, if a bit too modestly. Our Basset Hound business is a happy one and, if things go well, it adds to our ability to move forward into the Grand Plan. For the past five years we have been putting the Rocketdog returns into farming so this move out will free that money up for other uses once we figure out what to do next. So Rocketdog stays and might even grow a bit, as it always was part of the Grand Plan. Bigger boarding, same amount of puppies. We haven't been able to move into boarding and grooming as we had always planned.
Our Grand Plan was to terminate in becoming a wedding venue, where the real money may be. But the plan was made over ten years ago and we have aged quite a lot since then. We are now five years behind in our goals, so perhaps the wedding thing won't happen. Some plans, especially those with lofty goals, fail to make it to the end. We planned for this and included failure into the plan. If we never add anything new to our income stream we will be poor, but happy and not uncomfortable. So perhaps this is where we are headed. But there are some good ideas to work on and we have the time and spaces to do them.
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| The problem is not growing things. |
One of these things is perhaps going into herbal remedies based upon the herbs we have space to grow. We have been using our products for a few months and the results are nothing less than fantastic. One product we are using is a tincture of Purple Dead Nettle, a seasonal herb which grows in our rows in early Spring before our crops have gone into the dirt. This herb, once steeped into a daily dose, has made our lives so much easier and reduced our pain tremendously. So perhaps I can find a market for it. But there are many other herbs which we are trying out, things with potential. We might be able to grow these things and make useful remedies for sale.
For now we will continue to work the Farm, but next year we will scale back the planting effort and begin rebuilding our plans. Time will tell whether we ever do make anything of the place. But if all we get is good food on our table and enough income to keep eating, we are going to do just fine.
