How to operate A Farm
How to Start a Farm From Scratch (Beginner's Guide to Growing Vegetables for Profit)
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so you want to start a farm from scratch
even though you work in nine-to-five job
I have limited time and resources and
have limited experience with both the
production side as well as the business
side apartment in this video I'm going
to share the exact same seven step
process my wife and I have used to start
our farm in fact these steps allows us
to make a comfortable living on a small
farm and I hope that by the end of this
video you can use this framework to get
started in your farming
[Music]
hey guys my name is marina from the
Dutch pharmakom this channel is all
about sharing my experiences with
farming and showing new ways of how you
can transition from your current job in
career into making a good living on a
small farm on this channel we're going
to cover both the production side and
the business side of farming as well as
tips strategies and tutorials so if this
is your first time here welcome and
consider subscribing now before I'm
getting into the first step I would like
to share that the seven step process I'm
about to share with you here is the
approach that we used when we started
our farm I'm sure there are many ways
you can start a farm but following this
exact process allowed us to identify
exactly what crops to grow the estimated
quantities and the actual ideal
customers that were going to buy our
crops all before we invested anything
else than a little bit of our own time
so with that said let's jump right in to
step number one and this step is all
about doing your research before you
start your farm before looking at all
the different types of tools you're
going to need before preparing your farm
for production training a design for
your farm and a crop plan and even
before you start growing your crops like
do your research start by first
identifying who your ideal customers are
find out what they want how much they
want find out what they're willing to
pay for it what are you going to sell
your crops at the local farmers market
or to chefs or to local stores or at the
farm stand having a clear idea of who
you're going to sell to and what you
will actually grow for them is in my
opinion one of the fundamentals when you
get started too many people start this
farm business in the opposite way and
they start growing a bunch of stuff and
try to get rid of it after they've
started growing their initial crops
usually they follow the advice somewhere
in the lines of just grow the stuff you
like to eat yourself and I have to say
there is nothing wrong with that if you
do it for fun or as a hobby but from a
business perspective and if you want to
make a living from doing this you've got
to be a little bit more strategic about
it you actually have to go out there and
start talking to your potential
customers wherever that's possible go to
your local farmers markets and look at
what other farmers are growing look how
much they're growing up specific crops
like what do they have at the beginning
of each day and what do they have at the
end of the day look at their pricing
their presentation their customer
service and the types of customers they
are serving and ask yourself like is the
man higher than the supply or is the
place separated do they sell imported
produce only or strictly farm grown
produce having a basic understanding of
the supply and demand in your area will
allow you to start creating a plan of
approach maybe there's enough room for
another vendor at the market maybe you
can target an underserved audience or
maybe you can grow crops other farmers
do not have for sale but there's enough
of a demand for that makes it worthwhile
for you to grow also have a look at the
local restaurant scene go out there and
start talking to some chefs to see
whether they would be interested in
working with local growers as then what
types of crop they're looking for
throughout the growing season as then
where they get the produce from now and
what they're willing to pay for it how
many times per week will they like that
produce to be delivered having a basic
understanding of the demand in your area
will allow you to grow towards that
estimated demand and not the other way
around last thing you want is to be in a
situation where you have an abundance of
a crop where there's no demand for this
way you for sure end up with a very
expensive gardening hobby having said
that the process to find out about the
demand does not have to take you a very
long time and it's quite straightforward
the way we went about it on our farm was
simple we made a list with all the
potential customers in our area within a
certain radius of a farm that we were
comfortable with to drive in deliver our
produce to we listed down farmers
markets restaurants and local organic
grocery stores and except for the
farmers markets which we visited several
times to get an idea of the traffic and
produce being sold we contacted each
individual potential customers to set up
a meeting and to get to know their
demands doing this beforehand will give
you a good idea of what types of
Corruption potential customers are
looking for from there you can then
start creating crop profiles and start
selecting the crops you're going to grow
the way we did this on a farm is we
looked at the rough estimations after
demand of each individual crop once we
had these estimates we then started
estimating how profitable each crop
would be in our area based on the yields
days in the gardens and the inputs
required to get the crop from seed to
finish product from there we were able
to see based on our rough estimations
which crops would be the most profitable
to grow in our area but also was in line
with both the local demand and our
financial goals so if I would have
followed the advice of start growing
what you like to eat I
would have ended up trying to grow 30
different types of crops and probably 50
different varieties within those crops
that would have been way too much for me
to handle at the beginning when you're
just starting out I recommend you grow
anywhere between 15 to 20 familiar crops
that you know is a demand for in your
area get good at growing and selling
them then from Darren continue to grow
the stuff that sells well and get rid of
the ones that don't but most importantly
verify the demand before you start
growing step number two design your farm
this step is all about creating a basic
design of your farm this is a must if
you want to create a farm that is well
organized and optimized for efficiency
practicality and ultimately
profitability I've spent quite some time
working on other farms and it surprised
me that many of these farms fail to
organize their operations and create a
basic design that takes into
consideration the day-to-day work on the
farm elements were placed out of context
and discussed the farmers and the
workers to leave valuable time in the
process
having said that creating a farm
designed for a market garden is pretty
straightforward
the first step in the design process of
your farm is to create a basement sector
map this map contains basically all the
existing elements on your land like
trees buildings fences and things like
that but also outdoor forces like
prevailing wind directions wildlife
corridors potential thrust pockets
Sun angle during different times of the
year and the elevation of your land the
way we did this on our farm was that we
simply took the maps from our property
from Google Maps we got ourselves a nice
big piece of paper and we dreamed about
Ridge after land including all the
elements that were already present on
our property now you can do all of this
with software but I personally like
doing this step the old-school way with
a pencil and a paper that is not because
I like pen and paper so much it's got
more to do with the fact that I don't
understand any of the software out there
so to get hard drawing on scale we
simply went outside to take the
measurements with a long measure tape
and remember the distaff does not have
to be 100% accurate just make sure that
you have the rough measurements a you'll
be fine once we had this initial map
with the boundaries and the fixed
elements on it we needed to include the
external forces our land is dealing with
so things like the Sun angles wind
directions elevation of the land average
monthly temperatures and precipitation
frost pockets potential wildfire areas
areas and so forth taking all these
things into consideration during the
design process will allow you to create
a resilient practical and efficient farm
for example after evaluating your land
and creating the design you might
realize that there's a huge wind tunnel
effect on one part of your property that
will cause potential problems with the
crops you're going to grow there knowing
this you can now decide to include
windbreak there so you can reduce the
negative effect of the wind on your
crops or after evaluating your property
you might realize that the lower part of
your property is prone to flooding
knowing this you can decide to install a
drainage system or you could maybe
potentially create an irrigation pond on
this location these are small
observations to make it a big gaming of
the establishment of your farm and it
doesn't have to take you long to do this
but in the long run doing this
beforehand can and will have a large
impact on the functionality of your farm
then once you've created this first base
and sector map it's time to include some
of the fixed elements you're going to
need to operate your farm chances are
that there's already some buildings on
your property that could fulfill a
function for the farm like barns and
sheds if not you have to build it from
the ground up on our farm we identified
several key elements we needed for the
market garden including a plant nursery
for the growth of seedlings a greenhouse
for heat-loving crops and season
extension an irrigation system a tool
shed post harvest ation fencing and
permanent growing beds once we had
identified the fixed elements we needed
we use relative placement design to
place the elements in such a way that
minimizes food traffic and optimizes the
day-to-day tasks on the farm since our
property is small-scale and the
buildings were already there when we
arrived we simply converted these spaces
into a toolshed and a flow starpha
station but if this is not the case for
you consider placing these elements
centralized on your farm this will
minimize the food traffic and will
reduce the time walking back and forth
another important element on our farm is
our high tunnel as you can see the land
reform on contains quite some trees so
there was not much space left for us to
put it elsewhere then on the north side
of the property when placing a tunnel or
greenhouse you can see the first what
the function of it is do you want to
optimize it for winter production or for
summer production if you want to
optimize it for winter production the
best way to position your greenhouse
will be from east to west this will
increase the time the Sun shines in the
greenhouse with a low winter Sun if your
main goal is summer production place it
from north to south this will allow the
Sun to shine equal hours on both sides
of the greenhouse as for the growing
beds since we're dealing with an old
family style orchard here we had to pay
extra attention to the placement of the
beds since we wanted to create
standardized beds as this will allow for
much easier crop planning and materials
like fleeces to be of the same length we
have to do quite some puzzling next to
that we wanted to make sure to take into
consideration the way the water flows on
our land if we put our raised beds on
contour we are potentially creating
water capturing systems refer to as
swells and permaculture circles for the
purpose of drawing annual vegetables in
our temperate climate and with the soils
we are working with I find it's actually
best to locate the bed slightly off
contour this will allow the water to
slow down but also have enough time to
infiltrate into the soil whilst allowing
excess water to run off when necessary
as you can imagine these requirements in
combination with the three systems we
have to prescribe a bit of puzzling but
in the end we've been able to position
the beds how we wanted them and it
became a nice place to work and be in
these are some of the basic principles
we follow to design our small farm and
this will give you a broad overview of
how you can go about it on your farm
then we go to step number three and in
this step we're going to create a basic
cropland once you have your basic design
ready of your farm and you know roughly
how many growing bed you will have you
can now establish a crop plan that will
ensure continued supply of crops during
the growing season if this is the first
time you're going to create your
cropland it can become quite
overwhelming at times so it's best to
take some quiet time when you're well
rested so you can focus on the task at
hand the way we plan our crop production
is slightly different than other farmers
but the base principles are the same we
need to make sure that we grow enough
crops that will allow us to reach our
financial goals
so therefore we always start with a
financial target as our first step once
we know how much money we need to make
we can now start breaking this down into
a production system that takes into
consideration this goal but also the
local demand in our
with these criteria we can now proceed
to creating our cropland the way we do
this is we look at all the crops we are
going to grow including the rough
quantities we want to have for each crop
we then start writing down every single
seedling we need to do to cover the
weekly demand which goes as follows
let's say that after doing our market
research we've identified that there's
an estimated demand of 90 bunches of
radishes per week once we've estimated
the demand we then need to look at when
we can have the radishes available
during the growth growing season using a
crop availability list on our farm we
can have our first crops of radishes
available roughly around the 18th of
March in our high tunnel if you don't
know when you can have your crops
available in your area talk to some
other local farmers and some avatar
dinners or look at the recommended
seeding times for each individual crops
from local seed companies these can give
you good estimations of when you can
start planting your crops so if we can
have radishes available on the 18th of
March we need to know that days to
maturity with other words how long it
takes the crop from being seeded to
harvest stage 4 radish this is on
average 30 days but since were very
early in the growing season I would add
an additional 2 weeks to the average DTM
in this case if we want the radish to be
ready for the 18th of March we'll
subtract 44 days from this days to give
us our first seeding date which in this
case is February the 3rd once we add
this date will include this into our
crop planning spreadsheet after we've
identified the date we now need to find
out how much we need to grow of it so
this is where a crop data sheet will
have to be used this sheet contains all
the information you will need per
individual crop to help you out during
the crop planning stage at the end of
this video I will share with you a link
to our 3 7 steps to making a living on a
small farm guide that goes hand-in-hand
with this video that includes the crop
data sheet we use on our farm along with
a lot of other valuable research that
you can use since we've identified the
demand of 90 bunches of radishes per
week and we know we get on average 50
bunches per bed we now know that we need
to plant 2 beds of radishes to meet the
demand this we include in our
spreadsheet along with the dates this
little exercise we then do for each
individual crop we've decided to grow to
ensure we can meet the demand from from
our customers once we have this
foundation of our cropland ready we
combine all the crops
and we create a planting plan out of it
so we can make sure we have enough space
to fit in all the plantings and to
ensure the exact placements of each
individual crop during the growing
season whilst also taking into
consideration basic crop rotation
practices once we have the planting plan
ready we take the dates of each
individual planting
whether it's direct seeded or
transplanted crops and we write all of
this information down into our yearly
calendar these are the basics of crop
planning we do on our farm a great book
that helped us a lot with the planning
of our production is the Market Garden a
Bahama 1040a we basically use the same
framework explained in that book but
adapted it towards our own context and
needs step 4
prepare your land for production when it
comes to preparing your land for the
first time you've got a couple of
options chances are that when you first
start out you'll likely have to deal
with quite some weeds and existing
vegetation that you'd like to convert
into a production area and the way
you're going to approach it is going to
decide whether you're going to be faced
with lots of weeding or simple weed
management practices down the road in
general terms there are three main ways
you can use along with some variations
to convert a field of weeds into a
production area option number one and
probably one of the most familiar ways
of preparing your growing area is called
evading and tilling the soil with the
tractor or walk-behind tractor just
using this option as a stand-alone
method is not recommended by tilling the
soil and plowing it you will bring up
the previously dormant stored weed seeds
in the soil and create a perfect
environment for the seeds to germinate I
would personally use this approach only
in certain circumstances and always in
combination with some sort of coverage
after the initial tillage to move
towards a complete no-till system option
number two is using a sailor start to
kill off existing vegetation through a
process called occultation and depending
on the type of existing vegetation
you're dealing with this type will have
to be laid down anywhere between six to
twelve months to be effective option
number three uses the same principles of
depriving the existing vegetation of
sunlight but instead of covering up the
ground with a dark a thick initial layer
of compost is lay down on the surface of
the soil without integrating it this
process is called the low deck approach
each one's got its pros and cons and
depending on how fast you need your land
to be prepared your budget and your
personal preference
says you will have to decide which
option you're going to use on our farm
we actually use the combination of
option one and three before we arrived
on this piece of land it hadn't been
touched much for over 20 years besides
the occasional grazing of a small herd
of sheep as you can imagine the weeds
arrived waist high and since we needed
to get the production going immediately
we didn't have many options so we
decided to do a one time initial tillage
and from there on work towards a
complete no-till no big system now it is
possible to prepare your land in a short
timeframe but just putting down a four
to six inch layer of compost on the soil
surface
there were allow it to kill off the
existing vegetation and will allow it to
start growing immediately but if we
would have gone that way we would have
had to invest a large amount of money
into this initial coverage with compost
which was not something we were
confident with to do at the time so
instead we opted to plow the land and
got rid of most of the roots after it
was ploughed created the beds and
applied a three to three inch layer of
compost on the beds without
incorporating it into the soil we knew
that with the initial tillage of the
land in combination with just a thin
layer of compost we were going to face
quite some weeding and our expectations
were definitely met with consistent weed
management we've been able to get
complete control over the area and it's
now an important part of our production
system it's important to understand that
when you initially prep your soil you
want to achieve two things one you want
to get rid of the weeds and two you want
to balance the soil most of the soils we
are working with contain all of the
nutrients necessary for good vegetable
growth but the missing link often times
is the soil organic matter and soil life
this can quickly be corrected by
bringing in lots of compost to start
feeding the soil food web that in turn
will start taking care of your crops
once you've prepared your soil and
balanced it it becomes just a matter of
keeping the soil fertility maintained by
introducing organic matter each year
step 5 grow your crops from preparing
your land we go over to grow new crops
on our farm we grow crops in two
different ways we start seedlings in the
nursery which we then transplant out
into the fields and we direct seed crops
for each of the methods we follow a
different approach the transplanted
crops on our farm all get started in a
dedicated nursery here we can tail it
towards the needs of the small seedlings
and allow them to grow into strong and
healthy transplants for this process we
use say
people nursery trace these trace come in
many different sizes and dimensions to
suit the needs of the specific crops
that are grown in it we filled up the
trays with a high quality pre-made
potting soil but before we fill them up
we make sure to moist in the medium a
bit we then fill them out compact it
slightly seed it cover the seeds with a
final layer of potting soil water it
down and we're done depending on the
type of crop we are growing we either
transplant these seedlings outside into
their final location or in the case of
crops like tomatoes we Pat them up into
larger pots with fresh new potting soil
and we grow them on several weeks longer
till chances of Frost has passed and
this time we make sure to harden off the
transplants to prevent a transplanting
shock and let them get used to the
outdoor conditions
just before we transplant them into
their final location we make sure the
beds are prepared and are ready to
receive the seedlings depending on the
time of the year this means that we
either broadfork the beds apply compost
and mark out the space and you need it
for the crops once we've transplanted
the crop we ensure that they're
irrigated and kept moist until they've
settled in and are taking off the no dig
style beds on a farm really helps with
the water holding capacity of the soil
and keeps the whole area moist without
having to irrigate as much the direct
seeding we do on our farm takes up a lot
less time for this process we use
precision Cedars like the Jiang cedar in
the six row cedar the six row cedar we
used for our baby leaf crops like salad
mixes at a very high density and the
Jiang cedar for most of our other crops
unlike with the six row cedar who needs
near-perfect bed preparation the Jiang
is not as picky as through the way you
prepare your beds and does a good job of
compacted in beds after seeding now
every crop is different and different
crops need different spacing for a full
list of the crop spacing we used on our
farm you can download our seven steps to
making a living on a small farm guide
for free and check out our crop spacing
chart along with many other resources
I'll put the link down below in the
description so check that out the way we
do the direct seeding with the jiang
cedar is simple let's say I'm sealing
radish and I'm planting five rows in a
bed I first planned the two outside rows
then I passed one time exactly in the
middle and the remaining two rows I
plant in the middle of those two rows it
might take a little bit of practice in
the beginning but it won't be too hard
to get the hang of it as for the six row
cedar we simply make two passes over the
bed
and we have planted a full bed then a
quick write about the advantages of
transplanted crops over direct seeded
crops on our farm we favorite growing
transplanted crops growing transplants
allows us to gain a considerable amount
of time which in return allows us to
increase our profitability significantly
take a lettuce head for example the
average days to maturity of this crop is
roughly 60 days but this does not mean
that the crop says 60 days outside in
the garden instead we grow the lettuce
seedlings for roughly 30 days in the
nursery before we transplanted out into
their final location for another 30 days
before we harvest them
this means that within a 60 day period
we can potentially harvest two crops of
lettuce heads now take direct seeded
crops like beet roots from which the
days to maturity is roughly the same as
a lettuce head 60 days in that 60 day
time frame you will only have one crop
of beet roots first in the two crops of
lettuces besides the gain in time and
production you will also planned to
transplanted crops at the perfect
spacing which means you will get more
uniform harvest and potentially more
crops out of the same space as opposed
to direct seeded crops therefore on our
farm we favour growing transplanted
crops over direct seeded crops as soon
as a bed is harvested we want to replant
that bed as soon as we possibly can with
plants that are already several weeks
old this is a great way you can optimize
your production system and increase the
amount of crops you can produce but also
the profits you can make on a small farm
now obviously there are crops that don't
transplant well or at all and those will
have to be direct seeded but in general
this is a great way to increase your
revenue per growing bed step six and
then market and sell your crops once
you've grown your crops it's time to
sell them to your customers if you find
it step one in this tutorial you'll
notice that the marketing and selling
aspect of your crops comes pretty
naturally if you do your homework
upfront and you do it correctly you
virtually guarantee that you will sell
your produce by the times your crops are
ready since you already know what the
estimated demands are with your
potential customers by doing the initial
market research the selling part becomes
surprisingly simple though the way you
market and sell your produce depends a
lot on the type of customers you are
serving take it see is a membership for
example the bulk of the marketing of
your CSA shares are done during the slow
month of the year before the growing
season starts usually this is in winter
if you sell your produce on the farmers
market the marketing and selling will be
done on a weekly basis
same goes for chefs and grocery stores
but no matter what your market streams
are promoting yourself and your farm are
an important part in achieving success
the way you present yourself the way you
talk the promises you make are all
important when it comes to marketing and
selling and this all relates back to
branding your message the values you
stand for the story of your farm the
name of the farm the people you serve
and the people you don't serve the way
you present your produce the quality of
your produce all these things combined
are what makes up your farm brand and
this can play a crucial role in the
success of your farm the best way we can
describe a brand is that the brand is
the personality of your farm when doing
business with other people whether
you're selling to someone at the local
farmers market to restaurants or to
grocery stores it is important that they
know who they're doing business with and
why they're doing business with you
are you to go to farm for high quality
locally grown freshly picked produce or
do yourself eventually lower quality
produce
do you sell your produce in compostable
paper bags or do you sell it in plastic
bags the customers you attract are
directly related to the way you position
yourself as a farm for example I'm a
farm we have decided that we don't want
to sell any of our crops in plastic
packaging that is a decision we have
made and because of that decision we are
limited in the types of customers we can
serve as well as somewhat limited in the
types of crops we grow but that is what
we stand for and is something we don't
want to step away from because of that
decision the main customers that we
serve share the same values and
principles we have as farmers our crops
are mainly sold to people that are aware
of our current environmental situations
and they play the part to try and make
it better in a way that resonates the
most with them now I want to be clear
that when you start out you have to find
a balance between your ideology and
common sense if you are in an area where
organic produce or locally grown produce
is something that's not as common and
people are not used to it you might find
it hard to get customers and it will
take you quite some time to educate them
in that case serve the existing
customers and the local demand with
familiar products and grow and educate
your customers from there when done
right a brand can hell
but lot with the success of your farm
business it clearly delivers your
message which in turn can emotionally
connect your customers to you and your
produce and it can create a strong
customer loyalty so it's definitely
worth it to take some time analyzing
your market look at what your
competitors are doing find out who your
potential customers are and find ways to
differentiate yourself and position
yourself in your market step 7
keep track of everything one of the most
important steps if you want to achieve
success with farming is to keep track of
everything create basic spreadsheets for
your farm whether it's crop production
related or sales related having basic
spreadsheets for your farm is a must
this was one of my biggest mistakes when
I first started out I was pretty
overwhelmed with all the things that had
to be done on the farm that at the end
of the day I neglected this crucial part
it's big mistake if you want to know how
much you could get from a bed what input
you have per bed what is seed compost
labor or anything else you've got to
keep records of it if you want to know
that what you do is profitable efficient
and even worth it I know it's not the
most interesting part of farming but it
sure is really crucial for decision
making and future planning of the farm
take the time to sit down a couple of
hours per week analyzing your data this
will really help you get a better
understanding of the functioning of your
farm you might realize that the crop is
not as profitable as you thought or you
might realize that you can plant your
crops a bit denser then you've been
doing weather you need to know what
you've actually sold throughout the
growing season or the days to maturities
of the crops you've grown over the years
having recordings of all this data will
allow you to continuously improve your
farm each year now if you like this
video make sure to subscribe to this
YouTube channel right now also if you
want to get more information on how you
can actually quit your job start a farm
and make a living from it head over to
the Dutch farmer dot-com and download
our free guide in which I share the
exact same step-by-step process that
allows us to make a good living on our
farm I'll put the link down below in the
description now let me know in the
comments section below which of the
steps did you actually liked the most as
always thanks for watching have a nice
day and see you in the next video
