How to operate
A Farm
HOW TO START A FARM ON $5000 OR LESS!!!
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a lot of people email me asking they say
hey Curtis I don't have any money how
can I start a farm well I got some good
news and some bad news for you bad news
is you cannot start a farm without some
money the good news is you can start a
farm with a small amount of money and
that's what I'm going to explain to you
in this video ok so the key to starting
a small farm with very little money is
starting with the things that you that
you need like just starting with the
basics so I'm going to work within a
$5,000 budget range and explain to you
how you can start a farm on $5,000 and
then you can make some money and then
recapitalize that money to grow your
farm from there because you need money
to start a business and you need more
money to expand that business but why
not make money on your farm to grow your
business the one thing I like about
doing that is that you are sort of
organically testing the marketplace to
see what's working and what isn't and
there's one thing that's great about
starting on a small budget is it forces
you to make very calculated and careful
decisions on how you spend your money
I've worked with a lot of nonprofits
over the years and one thing I've seen
is that they often can kill an operation
of too much money because they have too
much money to spend they just try to
find places to spend it whereas when you
have very little money to spend you're
asking yourself do I really need that
thing maybe I don't maybe we can start
with this thing for now and then work up
to that and that whole process is a
great experience for personal growth but
also starting a business or having a
business grow because you get to test
things out and then see if they're
working if they don't you're not going
to continue them and if they do you're
going to double down on them and that's
that's been my strategy my entire career
from farming I started my farm on $7,000
but I did spend a lot of money at the
beginning that I didn't need to and I'm
going to show you the infrastructure
that you can that you that you should
absolutely start with in order to get
some production going first I just want
to talk about the land a little bit in
order to start making money on a farm
all you need is a small amount of land
you can literally
start with a yard like this so this is a
2,000 square foot plot when I say 2,000
square feet I'm including just a block
of land so I'm including the walkways
which I have 10 inch walkways I'm
including a few feet on the perimeters
around the edge so that block of land if
you're going to farm high-value crops
like I write about in my book and what I
do on my farm a block of land like this
can make $20,000 in a standard North
American climate so I'm in Canada I'm in
I'm in British Columbia southern British
Columbia and I can farm a plot like this
for at very least six months of the year
without any season extension without
anything complicated just a basic
growing season I can make twenty
thousand dollars on that land but the
thing that's important is I'm only going
to grow certain crops
I'm not going to grow potatoes I'm not
going to grow cabbage and onions I'm
going to mostly grow salad greens fine
herbs and baby root vegetables so if you
don't know what makes my profitable crop
list click up here and check that video
out I've talked about this many times
before there's sort of a criteria that I
follow so that is really important there
now when you're starting out you really
just want to focus on some simple market
streams maybe one Saturday farmers
market or you want to sell to a few
different restaurants so in this video
I'm not going to get into the specifics
of the production plan I'll save that
for a longer form video content we're
all kind of lay out what I think you
should plant in order to get started but
you know just start with something
simple start with something that's that
immediate cash flow you know that's
what's great about quick growing crops
is that from 30 days from seed to
harvest you've got something to sell so
that's really important so now let's
take a look at the infrastructure and
talk about the basic things that you
need to get started taking into
consideration that you've got at least
2,000 square feet right and so this
could be your grandmother's backyard it
could be your neighbor's backyard it
could be your backyard it's not that
hard to find a plot of land like this to
farm on just to start you can expand as
you go when I started my farm I started
with just one place and then I was
farming the neighbor's place and then I
was
getting more places from there and I'll
save how to find land for another video
but if you've got a small piece of land
whether it's urban or rural doesn't
matter all you need is something small
because if you're going to go big you're
going to need more infrastructure and so
I would really you know if we're talking
about starting with very little money
$5,000 we're not going to be put in any
heavy machinery into our budget here so
that means we're going to do everything
by hand and that's totally doable on a
small scale so let's check out some of
the tools I'm talking about so if you're
going to farm commercially you need to
have some kind of post harvest area this
is probably the most important place on
your farm it's where you'll store
vegetables it's where you'll wash things
you'll dry things and you'll pack things
like packing greens packing tomatoes in
containers whatever it is the post
harvest area is very important so I'm
going to go through each piece of
infrastructure here and explain it you
can start really simply you don't have
to have this kind of setup you can set
up a temporary canopy in your back yard
and that's how I've done it you can
start really simple okay you're going to
start farming commercially you must have
a walk-in cooler you can buy or build a
walk-in cooler relatively cheap I've
done videos on this before you can get
something like this for $1,000 or
sometimes way less so that is really
important that the thing that key about
a walk-in cooler is it allows you to
store produce for longer period of time
so you can market it but it also allows
you to get things off the field quickly
to get the field heat off so that that
product doesn't degrade so quickly and
it allows you to streamline top so you
can just get harvesting done when it
needs to be done opposed to doing it all
at once you need a walk-in cooler if
you're going to farm commercially this
is a washing table this is where we wash
root vegetables wash totes do pretty
much most of the wet work on the farm
you can build something like this for
$100 maybe a little bit more maybe a
little bit less dependant on them
available but all this is built with
two-by-fours I have two by sixes for the
leg and this is a half inch galvanized
steel mesh and basic washers to hold
hold it down with screws in there the
materials are not that expensive and it
has a rubber liner on the bottom that
directs the water into another bin and
then I pump that water onto my perennial
berries and bushes around my property
but this is an important piece of
infrastructure and it's really it's
really necessary in the post-harvest
area this is a bubbler this is our
primary green's washing station and it
works with a Jacuzzi pump underneath the
pumps air through these holes and it
creates a jacuzzi effect which shakes
off all the dirt and bugs on your greens
you can build this thing for around four
hundred dollars to buy a big tote like
this these are just kind of water
feeding feed troughs you can get an Ag
supply stores and this is all made with
PVC that is our Jacuzzi pump these are
our solid spinners I've done videos on
these before you can build one of these
for around three hundred dollars
sometimes even less because the
components are quite simple just go get
yourself a Maytag washing machine and
modify it I've done videos on this
before and I've been spinning salad
greens many different ways over the
years but this is by far the best most
efficient and fast this is our greens
drying screen this is important if
you're going to do a lot of salad greens
some people don't use a green drying
screen and that's fine I find that if we
blow dry our greens a little bit and get
any residual water off them they
increase the shelf life 2 or 3 fold so
it's been a worthwhile piece of
infrastructure for us there's not much
more than a couple hundred dollars of
materials here possibly even less these
box fans up there cost about twenty
dollars each so this is a relatively
inexpensive piece of infrastructure to
build now the quick cut greens harvester
this tools in many of my videos but even
if I was on a very very micros
I farm I wouldn't grow greens without
this tool it saves us it turns eight
hours into 45 minutes of work per week
so if you're going to farm on the very
small scale this tool is certainly worth
your while because on a small farm if
you're trying to make money at it you
want to be growing greens those are one
of the more profitable crops to put more
profitable categories of crops I should
say so I definitely wouldn't do it
without a quick cut green harvester you
know this tool runs around five hundred
dollars five to seven hundred dollars
and it's worth every penny
as far as soil work and planting goes my
primary cedar is the Jiang cedar that's
worth about $600 but I did start with
the earth way and that worked for me for
about two years so you can if you're on
a really tight budget start with an
earth way it's about a hundred dollars
the Jiang is six hundred dollars but
those are the either one of those tools
are going to be what you plant with so
you're going to need some kind of bin to
harvest produce into I use Rubbermaid
bins and you know you might spend about
$300 on getting a decent amount of these
to start with this is about a quarter of
the bins that I use on my third of an
acre farm so if you're going to start
really cheap these are the basic tools
you can you can use you can basically do
all of your bed prep manually with tools
like this you don't need to have any
machinery you can do all this by hand
yes it's more labor but if you're going
to be on just 2,000 square feet to start
you can pretty much do everything with
these tools so this shovel here you know
shoveling compost what-have-you
this is a bed rake this is for leveling
out your beds it's sort of a finishing
rake a good digging fork is to aerate
your soil to break ground essentially a
stirrup hoe is a great weeding tool but
it's also a good bed prep tool when
we're going between crops and we're
doing shallow till or no-till we're
shanking the crop out on the top putting
that residual stuff in the compost
and using that to scuffle up the top of
the bed and then a standard rake like
this you can actually use to get a nice
tilt in your soil and you don't need to
have a roto tiller or even a tilt er you
can do it with a tool like this and
again it is more labour but if you're
going to start really cheap these are
the tools that I would suggest you start
with so that's the basic stuff if you
want to start really cheap you got to
start small and you need to keep things
simple and they are going to be more
labor intensive but it's totally
possible so I'll do further videos on
more of the production side of this but
this is the basic infrastructure that I
would suggest if you're going to start
bare-bones
with basically very little money you
know and you can also go even cheaper if
you can find a lot of this stuff used
you can do garage saleing you can find
cheaper alternatives just to get the
ball rolling because the important thing
is just to get some production going
start making some money once you start
making money then you can reinvest and
grow it as you go
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