Farm Plan

If you are not engaging and accessible, it will definitely reflect in your customer base. Packaging How food arrives at your customers' houses is more important than it might seem.

Listen to your client. When others play, you work. Friendly and flexible. Over time, you'll become familiar with the natural sequence. Find your own niche. We had to make many trips back and forth carrying in and then carrying out–sometimes covering...

As Alex Foell–the 23-year-old, male supervisor at the 1900 Farm at the Living History Farms near Des Moines, Iowa–walks out of the barn, fresh-faced and well-muscled in blue overalls and a white T-shirt, it's immediately evident that, yes, 100 years...

Go month by month, and week by week, and choose items that you could reasonably fit into those shares. Plant a variety, and plant in successions. Getting a big burst of cash up front lets farmers budget for the season, buy the necessary tools or seeds...

Duration Once you have your farm budget, you can decide for how many weeks you want your CSA to go. Do you need to extend the duration of the CSA so that a smaller number of shares can get you closer to your budget?

This is a great way to figure out what works and what doesn't so that you're not ordering the same seed that sounds so good on paper every year then being disappointed by its performance.

Parsley rebounds quickly and comes back lush—it's well worth the work of getting it started. Get a customer hooked and they'll return for more. Maybe they'd be willing to pay a little more for locally grown parsley?

Running a winter CSA can offer a nice boost of funds to get you through until spring signups and markets, taking some of the pressure off you and your customers in the late winter.

You should let your own personal style influence your farm brand, but knowing who you are selling to can guide just how far to take it. Distributing Your Product Standing out may also be as simple as doing a different type of CSA.

Taking the weeds and spent crops down to the ground helps you see the garden again, making it look clean and reasonable. Satisfy that itch so that farming won't keep you from scratching it.

To get to Barr Farms, you head west out of Louisville, and before you know it, you're in paradise. With this opportunity, Adam and Rae could have taken the farm in several directions, but one need they kept coming back to was a packing shed—a place...

When you learn their name, use it often throughout the conversation to help yourself remember it and to make them feel comfortable with you. You don't want to call people by the wrong names or remember them by the wrong preferences, but every market has...

For the past few years, I've followed Hartman's implementation of lean manufacturing principles in agriculture with great interest. For the uninitiated, lean manufacture (also simply referred to as lean) is a system of manufacturing designed by car manufacturer...

Rural areas can vary tremendously in the extent and intensity of requirements, from no regulations to lengthy regulation checklists, including board hearings and various permit applications and fees.

Or, more effective still would be a season interning. Where will the barn sit? So I've put together five critical steps to getting your dream farm that, if taken seriously, will get you the farm you want.

Finding a solid farm-sitter can be a mental relief not just for fun weekends away but in case of emergencies, too. In the summer, perhaps a high school student in FFA or 4-H will stay at the house to watch over your farm.

Do want means of producing offspring to raise or to sell? Take care of the livestock-keeping legalities before purchasing animals. Alpacas and Llamas Female alpacas run $10,000-30,000, and a pet or fiber gelding costs $1,000 or more.

Requirements for different destinations vary by state—to sell at a farm market might require something different than selling to grocery stores across state lines, for instance—but in most cases, if you sell meat to third-party customers, you need...

I cannot tell you what that number should be, but it should help you meet your yearly budget . Catchall Structures One easy way to price produce is price it all the same. And if someone wants only one item then you make a little extra for it.

I believe you should always grow inward until you absolutely can't anymore , then grow out. Bring It Closer to Home One mistake farmers make is growing outward too quickly. Then you can enjoy more evenings and relax a little.

A website costs little to establish and maintain, in know-how, time and money. Choose a Worthy Hosting Service Don't submit to the temptation to use freebie hosting! Visitors despise the advertising banners and annoying pop-ups that are part and parcel...

Along with the samples, distribute recipe sheets with your contact information printed on them. She asked if I'd like to share them with you, and so I am! Host a trail ride or driving rally culminating with a potluck supper.

Even if they're already busy, getting business operations set up on the right foot means less work for them in the long run. Use Business Management Best Practices In today's litigious and policy-driven society, you business should have hand-written procedures...

“Keep a system for your expenses that is very simple,” Barr advises. Downtime in the off-season is the perfect opportunity to get your farm business on track with proper record-keeping strategies.

Beekeeping: Bees take almost no space and require minimal work compared with other agricultural endeavors. Don't sweat it. Why not create some soil. The good news is they are not that difficult to grow and they take up almost no room.

And cooks need these crops: It's the rare patron that couldn't use some onions or garlic. Go beyond salad greens to profit from long-season crops with the following tips. Go Green(house) Keeping your garden inside for as long as possible is another good...

They're here for the romance of it, which means that they are not in our way or keep us from getting the work done.” Have your regular chores structured in a routine that makes it easy for guests to join.