It can be done, but it has to be done right. You can't come into a small farming operation and have alot of debt. You also have to know your market. It will take several years to get established as a good source for produce. It will also take some creative marketing. Look into some value added products, jellies, jams, etc. Are there any big markets around? I would suggest you start your farm and do it part time. I am a teacher and this is my "second Income". To bad, if I had more space and time, I might go full time.

I know a guy near me who is retired from the military and now is market gardening full time. The two put together gives him a nice monthly check.

My husband works full time off the farm but I recently quit my job to work the farm full time. I have done this before so I have 10 years of experience behind me. This summer I was within $400 of reaching the goal I set for myself. I am very happy with that. My goal for next year will be 1/3 higher than this year. I do not see my husband quitting his job any time soon.
Linda

We're close to 100 percent, though we supplement as needed in the winter with odd jobs. I'd add that what we find financially adequate is probably lower than many people. We also don't have children. We don't have a lot of debt.
Qualifiers aside, in my opinion it is really, really important to diversify. If one part of the operation gets shaky, you still have money from other parts. We currently sell honey (our biggest money maker), shiitakes (our biggest profit margin - we cut the logs off our property and participate in a state program that provides the spore, and use our beeswax to seal the holes) and sell vegetables (least money, lowest profit margin. But, the garden also feeds us, which we calculate is worth thousands).
Even within each of the three parts we try to diversify. Take the beeyard - we sell honey and also sell wax items such as candles. We also raise our own queens, plus sell nucs (small hives) to other people. Honey crops can, and often do, fail or produce less than you are counting on.
It looks like you are in east Tennessee, we are over the ridge in North Carolina. If you don't have flat bottom land - we don't - you are going to have to work with what you've got as far as farming. Mountain farms can be tricky. Are you high enough for fraser firs for Christmas trees? Any interest in bees? So on and so on. Good luck! Quintin

My husband and I make 100% of our living from the farm. We grow produce and sell it via farmers markets, a CSA, farm stand and to a local university. Like Quintin we are childless, carry no debt other than a small mortgage and live very cheaply.

We have 9 acres with about 4 under cultivation. We raise a wide variety of fruits, veggies and herbs. We grow organically but are no longer certified organic. We do season extension so we can sell produce virtually year round.

We used to raise chickens for meat and eggs but found we were not making much profit even selling eggs at $3.75 a dozen and chickens for $5 a pound so quite doing poultry.

Here is a link that might be useful: Boulder Belt Blog

It's been a few years since I've posted on this forum but we are still in business and will be starting our 14th season in January. For the last 13 of these years our farm has completely supported 2 adults and at times 3. And we do this on but one-half acre of raised beds, [not counting the half-acre of alleys between them].

We practice an agricultural technique known as "cut and carry" [search], which is has been practice since the dawn of agriculture and continues to be be practiced in the less developed countries and often today with livestock raising. But feeding garden beds with organic material cut from the surrounding neighborhood is probably 10 times more efficient at producing food, as measured in calories, as feeding livestock.

We use a systems approach. In the formal study of systems, system input and output are major considerations. And as a general rule, high output requires high input.

A traditional cut and carry farmer goes out into the surrounding community and cuts fodder for his animals and/or mulch material for his intensive beds. He may get this from roadsides, ditch banks or communal lands those of us that live in the more developed countries, such as here in the US, have commercial landscape maintenance gardeners to to it for us. And since, they usually have to pay to dispose of their greenwaste at landfills, they are delighted to bring it. And when it comes to making deals, the receiver is in the driver's seat. We want, for the most part, just grass clippings and leaves that are free of stringy branches, brush and limbs that can't be directly applied to our beds or ar hard to fork.

Few people understand just how valuable this stuff is. Each cartful of mulch hauled in will, over time, provide almost all the input for a similar cartful of food hauled out. This is in accordance with the Law of Conservation of Matter and specifically the principal in chemistry that elements cannot be created or destroyed. The 16 or so elements that make up living things are, for the most part, the same as we find in both mulch and in our own bodies. A partial exception to this is nitrogen so we need to augment applications of mulch materials with nitrogen fertilizers of one kind or another. Note please that since the latter part of the 19th century, perhaps with the mining of sodium nitrate, human population has jumped from 1 billion to nearly 7 billion.

We support ourselves with hand labor almost exclusively. In the garden the only liquid fueled tool we use is a sickle bar mower and if the blade snaps again it's going to junkyard and replaced with a scythe which we've found works just about as well for clearing over-the-hill beds.

Please check out our website at the link below for morfe details.

Living the agrarian dream in Central California . . .

John Warner

Here is a link that might be useful: Whole Systems Agriculture

Your post was really interesting, John, and I visited your website, where I found even more interesting ideas. I will be giving a lot of thought to your methods in my Michigan growing next season.

I was a little dismayed, though, by one point you made in your post: Each cartful of mulch hauled in will, over time, provide almost all the input for a similar cartful of food hauled out. This is in accordance with the Law of Conservation of Matter ... I'm pretty familiar with the Law of Conservation of Matter, and you can't really invoke it here where you are only considering some of the inputs (no water or CO2 for example) and some of the outputs (crops only, no water or O2). If there really is a correlation between a cart of mulch and a cart of food, maybe we could just call that the Warner Law of Equivalency.

ThinMan

Hello Thinman. Thanks for your intetrest in my website.

I plead guilty of oversimplification and overstatment which I regard as literary styles that give a little more zip to the mundane. But in the case the cartful equivalency it is almost literally true. What I left out is a review of what goes on between bringing in the mulch and hauling out the food.

First microorganisms, in the presence of air and water, break down the elements of life into soluble minerals: N, P, K, S, Ca and 10 or so others. CO2 is released into the air and O is used from the air in a slowly combustive process known as respiration.

Next, crop plants grow making use of the elements released from the mulch. Then, by the process of photosynthesis, energy from the sun pretty much replaces the energy bound up in the carbon that was in the mulch and the minerals of life are reorganized into new plants.

I'm presuming that environmental air and water are always available on both sides of the equation. The inputs considered here are plant nutrient elements only--the macro and micro nutrients contained in fertilizers. Nitrogen, however, is more elusive than the others and therefore a special case. But that would be the subject of another discussion.

Here is a link that might be useful: Whole Systems Agriculture

Thank you, John, for replying to my message. I hope my comment didn't seem rude to you. It's probably foolish and irritating of me to try to initiate a discussion of chemistry when I know that most folks don't really speak the language, and are either confused or bored silly by it.

I appreciate your friendly response, and I think you are miles ahead of me with your gardening methods. I'll be referring often to your website.

Apologies to mtnrunner for getting off topic in your thread.

Regards,
ThinMan

Can it be done yes. I dont do it but in my market their are a couple who do but most of us have day jobs. start small and grow into it. Grow something this coming srping right where you live now and get the hang of it. you dont need 6 or 7 acres to make a start. a 100 by 100 plot would be a start. Grow a variety of crops over a long 3 month span and see what the think. Think high labor crops like green beans, raspberries, cut flowers, ect.

The "locavore" trend is making it possible for more and more people to earn a living this way. Although I would like to say that many other legitimate jobs, such as nurse, engineer, grocery clerk, teacher, etc. don't always generate an income that supports the entire family, usually with those jobs, unless the person is single, someone else in the family might work at least part time. One man in Virginia earns what he calls a "white collar income" for his family on just 2 and a half acres growing rare chile peppers and turning them into sauces right on the farm. Others add other ag-related cottage businesses to the farm, such as making crafted items from their crops to sell during the off-season, or allowing classes of school kids to tour the farm for a few dollars a head.

First, get rid of all debt possible. Health insurance is nice, but there are "clinics" that are based on your income. Get some Major Medical, and use the clinics for regular check ups and such.

We lived 2 years 90% on market money. It was hard. We have woods and heated with wood that Mother Nature brought down. Ate what we grew, very little "store" bought. Need money for phone, gas(cooking stove), electric (we had generator, but still needed gasoline)car insurance (state required), taxes (of course)and medicines (generics). We had no mortgage or car payments.

After the 2 years, hubby went back to work (carpenter). We are saving for retirement and plan on market gardening for retirement income. We will only have Social Security, whatever that amounts to.

We live completely off of our market garden income, we have 130 acres under production. I think it can be done with your size of farm though, I have friends that do it quite well. But they have modest needs, one child, a simple home, use wood for heat much of the time, recycle and re-purpose clothes, building materials etc. They do save enough money to travel overseas every 3 years! So, if you are very industrious and creative and can go without every "Urban" necessity I think you could do it. On the other hand I have seen countless 'city folk' who think it would be a nice way to live, fail miserably and move back to the city with a bunch of debt (and sometimes a divorce!)

Do you have access to operating capital/line of credit? How much equipment do you already own? How far is the farm from a major urban area? Is there an established farmers market in your region? Do you know who your competition will be? How busy is the market? could you go to several? Is it possible to sell from the farm-gate? Can you make your farm an ag-tourism destination? (think pumpkin patch or u-pick berries). Do you have family that will help with seeding and weeding until you can hire help? have you looked into the WWOOF program for additional (free) help?

I would ease into it. Do it for a few summers to see how much money you can make. It will be a lot of work, but if it is your dream, just go for it!

How many workers do you have for 130 acres? I don't think I could even dream of working that many acres. Do you mono-crop or diversity?

We are a true market garden. We grow all kinds of vegetables, everything you can imagine, herbs and fruit (strawberries, raspberries, melons) and grow bedding plants (mainly annual flowers). Everything is sold at the farm gate and at the farmers market. We don't have livestock or any mono-crops that are sold into the supply chain (we are not a commercial farm).

But, yes, it takes a lot of people. Not as many as you would think though. We work 16 hr days during the spring and summer. We have 5 people who work in the retail side (farm gate) and another 2-5 who help at the farmers market 2 times a week. We have 10-15 who work in the fields, 6 full time and the rest on a as needed basis (they are mainly picking peas and beans). And since we are in Canada we don't have 'illegals' like many USA farms. The minimum wage in our region is 9.00/hr (CND). Our on farm store is open 7 days a week. It is a short season in our part of Canada, we start selling veggies beginning of July through mid october, after that we really only sell pumpkins until Halloween. We close for the season November 1st. We sell flowers in may and June.

The reason I posted was to answer that yes, it is possible to live off of a market garden only, but you have to be committed to it. A couple can easily work 7-10 acres on their own with no staff and make a modest living with few luxuries. As the farm gets bigger, so do, obviously the expenses. We could make do with growing only enough to take to the farmers market, but we enjoy the farm-gate aspect, the u-pick berries and the pumpkin patch, so we have to grow enough to supply our on farm store and make it worthwhile for folks to drive to the country to buy vegetables. Plus, its a challenge!