As you can see my online "Moniker" is "GoatHollow"!!! That's because I used to keep a number of goats on our little 1 acre Homestead property. (Point 4 ha)
At one point, we had 11!!!!! They were a lot of work, and to tell you the truth, Goats are fragile. They succumb to any number of parasites and worms of the digestive tracts. We lost a lot of them, despite my best efforts to help them.
I've bottle fed many many baby goats, and we even had a little billy goat (His name was Tripod) who couldn't use one of his legs. I built a wheel chair for him, and even a "Peg Leg" so he could walk like a pirate.
I was finally digging a grave one day (In the rain) for one of my favorites, a nanny goat named Peanut that we'd raised from a baby. She was the sweetest thing!!! She just quit eating. I took samples to the local vet, I treated her with every medicine I could think of, she just died.
So here I am in the rain digging, and wallowing in the mud, and crying like a grown man shouldn't... And I decided enough was enough. We gave the rest of our goats away, and now we had this half acre pasture that is good for nothing but eating lawn mower gas.
Well I've been planning on what to do with this "Fallow ground", and ran across some of the people on Youtube who do "Urban Farming". There's a lot of talk about how you can make big money, small farming. I don't expect to make a huge fortune, but maybe I can get enough to get by. We're "Poor folk", anyhow, but we don't have tremendous needs either. Good thing we got out of debt some time ago!!!
We're planning to use half of our 2 1/2 car garage as a produce stand, if I can get $3-4 hundred together (US) to buy materials with for construction. I already posted a blog here on Steemit and showed off the green house I built for $288!!! (USD)
https://steemit.com/gardening/@goathollow/my-usd288-green-house
I have 40 tomato plants growing there, another 20 bell peppers, and over 200 lettuce plants!!!
On May 10th, unfortunately I had a Stroke. The Doctor people tell me I had 2! Just at the busiest time for starting our little produce business. :( I'm still recovering, but I'm getting a little better each day, and already making plans again
There's always next year!!!
I will be accepting Bitcoin and Steem in exchange for our produce!!!!! Anybody know how to do that???
I think you'll do just fine, the more 'self-sufficient' folks typically do well. I'm in my first year selling for market, but have found my 'niche' as they say. It worthwhile enough for me to do it again next year, I will say that.
Now, I think I might be able to help you with the crypto payment. I am planning to accept crypto payment next year as well. I assume you have a crypto wallet setup to transfer STEEM in/out. If you setup a wallet on the platform/site of your choice - in that wallet you will find a deposit address - it will usually be accompanied by a QR code {the square barcode looking thing}. It should be a downloadable image that you can save. Save it. If you cannot save it, take a screenshot on your phone or computer. If you have any trouble w/ screenshot, I can probably walk you through that. 10 years on YT though, I highly doubt you need any help. 😋
Once you have the QR CODE you can print it out on a sheet of paper. Make a little sign that says I accept Crypto payment & all the customer needs to do is open their crypto wallet on their smartphone, it has them take a photo of the qr code, then send the amount you request. I am going to give it a shot next year, but I accept credit card and that makes up for maybe 2/100 transactions. I am really curious to see how many people are using crypto by next season.
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Thanks so much, at least this gets me started in the right direction!!! I don't have a wallet yet, need to research for a good exchange some more. (Hopefully not one that the Guberment will go after.) Yes I can take screenshots, and print them lol (Check out a little program called "Greenshot." Again thanks for the help!!!
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My pleasure, @goathollow! We could all use some extra coin and there is power in numbers, my friend. We stand for liberty & we stand for one another. I love to help those that help themselves, so you feel free to tag me with any questions. STEEM ON 🔥🚀
This world needs more doers & less takers, more movers & less shakers
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Good luck with this enterprise.
Will you be selling direct to customers coming to you? Or will you sell at farmers markets or to local restaurants and shops?
It would be interesting if you had any other steemians nearby that might want to buy your produce for steem.
I'm guessing you follow Curtis Stone on YouTube? He has a lot of good advice.
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yes Curtis Stone, and J. M. Fortier as well. We were going to sell at the local Farmer's market, but it's tiny! There are usually 4 to 5 vendors. I offered to help find a "Busker" to come and play for free, and the "Market Manager" went nuts. Told me to mind my own business. It only gets 40, or 50 customers a week anyhow, so maybe it's not worth the effort. Nearest decent market is an hour away. We may just be selling at our own "Produce Stand." It might take us a while to build up a clientele, but would be worth the wait. We also intend to sell dried herbs online, and some seed.
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shame I can't help and buy apples from ya over the border :) good luck sir
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Bummer. I have a tree full this year..... Peaches too!
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Great post! I'm sorry to hear of your hardships but if this community is for anything it's to help each other in time of need. A 1/2 acre is a decent amount of land and definitely enough to make some real money farming. I would also suggest doing microgreens either in the garage or out in the greenhouse. They're pretty easy to grow, fetch a good price, and are less labor intensive than most field crops.
If your market can support it I would just try and go straight wholesale to restaurants and grocery stores; bypassing the farmers market all together. I also think s farm stand from home could work but it's just about building up those relationships with your neighbors.
I wish you the best of luck with everything and will be following your journey and lending support when I can.
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I approached a local restaurant, and they insisted on a tomato price "Better" than the local Aldis grocery store..... For fresh (Picked day of delivery) better product that their dining customers would find much tastier!!!! I approached a local grocery store, and was told I needed $1 million bond, and application / approval process through company headquarters... Who needs it??? We've settled on the "Farm Stand route" with online sales of dried herbs (8 ounces or 225 grams of Dried "Arnica flowers" is fetching as much as $17.50 US on Amazon. Comfrey root is getting about $1 for a 3 inch piece. I found the State Highway traffic counts for the road in front of our house. It's a short cut between 2 cities. We get about 23,000 cars a month. I've calculated that with good marketing, and signage maybe I can get 2% of people driving by to stop. @ just $2 per customer, that would give enough for us to get by. (We're debt free, and don't need much income.) As far as microgreens go, we're in a really rural area.
Microgreens aren't a fad here!!! You can't even sell them. People will pay $5/dozen for corn on the cob, but have never tried microgreens. Tomatoes, lettuce mix, carrots, beets some kale, spinach, and pumpkins should sell pretty well. Anyhow thanks @Greenshiner for your reply!!!
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Ok good to know. It is damn near impossible to get a good price for your crops without that metropolitan foodie scene. However I think you are on the right track with your farm stand and selling cuttings on amazon. Jerusalem Artichoke for instance is going for around $23/lb! It's a Honey Badger crop that will literally take over wherever it's planted.
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HEY!!!!! I've got a lot of Sunchokes!!! I'll start digging lol!
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