After 20 years of education and 15 years of work I just came to the conclusion that I need to leave the matrix job nonsense. It's eating my soul. Can't do it anymore. Vegetable farming and woodworking will be my way out. Good stuff man, thanks.
I grow up on the farm, helping my grandparents and parents grew and water the crops , feed the pigs , cows chickens , ducks. My older generation said they work hard to send me to school to have better job . In my mid 30s, I got burn out at work , I am back to plant in a small community garden plot . Gardening every morning with my kids heal me for the last 2 years . We are saving to be able to have a land so we can grow our own vegetable ! Who know I might end up become a farmer again when my husband and I retire . My mind set change , I will always let me kids try different stuff from farming to working and pursue education at the same time and I will always tell them , do what make them happy and so they can can do for long time. And it will never too late to change directly at any age if they have a choice ! Thank you for this video ❤
I have been market gardening for many many years. The way my farm looked when I started compared to how it looks today is night and day. I do not grow greens in the ground anymore, I do them all hydroponically, for starters. Harvesting greens in the field, then washing them over and over until they are clean will slowly drive you mad. Especially if you live in the South where there is heavy insect pressure. The hydroponic greens I grow do not even really require washing and there is no bending over. And yes, you can grow hydroponically and still be certified organic. I do not grow in water, I grow in coco/peat and use only organic inputs. It's actually cheaper than the field and makes a superior product. I used to grow like twenty different crops in a season, now I grow about six. This fall I am only growing lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and an Asian greens mix from Johnny's. I am growing around six different kinds of each of those crops, but I'm not planting out anything else. No chard, collards, cabbage, or kale, because they really just do not make enough to justify the time they take to harvest and store. I love growing broccoli/cauliflower because the process time is nearly nonexistent. I cut the morning of the market, bring to the market, sell out in 45 minutes, and go home with $1000 dollars in my pocket and a grin on my face. My goal is to move everything to hydroponic production with the exception of broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. Hydroponics works very well on small farms, especially in reducing labor. If you are not selling out at a farmers market in an hour or two you ain't doing it right! Glad to hear you are selling out. At the end of the day that is all that matters, because it is what keeps you in business.
Yea hydroponic has some advantages with lettuce for sure but what I like about my style is it's incredible flexiblewith my market. I live in a low population area so diversity in crops helps a lot. The only crop I grow that isn't super profitable is beets but everything else is very good. Kale and Chard is so easy in my opinion. Way less labor than most. All that matters is the paycheck and my farm is still developing but my goal is $300,000 / year.
@@farmtablewest5991 I do not have a walk in cooler, so the way we have to store the chard is in buckets filled with water, kind of like treating them as a cut flower. Same for collards/kale, so as you can see in my context they are a little annoying. They store VERY well like this, i'd almost argue better than in a walk in cooler. I have two standard fridges that I use to store all my lettuce mix. Head lettuce we store in water as well. Anything to not buy a walk-in cooler, haha.
@@danielrd7493 Oddly enough a lot of the best content is from marijuana growers. That's where I started gathering info. Homegrown Passion is a good hydroponic farm that gives a lot of details, if you don't want to learn from the potheads.
Im a process engineer in my 40 and getting tired with mentioned race. Seriously giving it a thought, especially when we finally moved to countryside a year ago. Ill start tiny scale free time for own needs and then scale up smarter and switch when possible. Imagine organic attempt at farming optimized with LEAN and Six Sigma ;)
