Archive

Back in 2023 I wrote an article on my budgeting method for my farm, the way I compare actual expense against the budget on a monthly basis, and some of the analysis I do at the end of the year. (“Farm bookkeeping and budgeting” from the April 2023 GFM.) One thing I skipped over in that article was how I handle depreciation, and how the concept of depreciation can be useful in understanding profitability from year to year and in making sure that you’re budgeting for maintenance and eventual replacement of “fixed assets.”

Last fall we invested in a bale buster and flat filling machine for our cut flower farm, Moonshot Farm in East Windsor, New Jersey. It’s one of our favorite investments we’ve made to date. The machine has provided significant labor savings and more even planting results. If you’ve been considering investing in one, it might not be as out of reach as you think.

Space and time. Anyone who has formed a basic crop plan knows that these two dimensions dictate what you can grow within your farm or garden. The third and sometimes overlooked dimension is effort. If space and time determine what you can grow, effort informs what (and how) you should grow.

We’ve heard it many times. You didn’t get into farming to do marketing, bookkeeping, and all the other tasks of running a business. Yet, here you are knee deep in spreadsheets, Quickbooks reports, social media videos, and a host of other things you didn’t think you signed up for when starting a farm. It’s true, running a successful farm business requires that we wear many other hats.

Many years ago, I took my family on a road trip to the Grand Canyon and the beautiful red rocks of Utah. Highways in this part of the country are desolate with long stretches between exits. I still remember when we missed a critical fork in the road because my GPS service was spotty. As our exit suddenly appeared, I hesitated and missed the interchange, only to discover it was 25 miles to the next exit. We added a costly hour to our trip that day.

I’ve made over 40,000 yards of compost over the past 28 years using a skid steer, bucket loader, and a compost turner. But the first compost piles that I built in 1978 were entirely hand-made endeavors. Beyond their careful construction, the fact that these piles were never turned, yet produced high-quality compost, continues to guide an approach to composting that I refer to as “low-input” or “slow” composting.

As many farmers likely will agree, selling at a farmers market has many benefits including connecting with potential customers one-on-one, selling at a higher price point than one could demand wholesale, and establishing your business in a particular community. But one of the greatest drawbacks is the sheer amount of time invested in attending and traveling to and from the market, especially if you live in a rural area. 

When I first saw tine weeders more than 25 years ago, I couldn’t really understand how they worked. A tine weeder is essentially a rake, and I often do use rakes as tine weeders on my tiny farm. The first tine weeder I used was a modification of a Lely tine weeder (similar to a Williams Tool) which was set up behind a tractor. Through extensive use of that, and similar tine weeders I’ve gained a better understanding of both how they work, and where and when they make sense.

In 2018 I made the leap from a career in biomedical research to a life of small-scale organic farming. I started by training on working farms, doing my ‘dirt time’ and learning from experienced farmers. As soon as I set foot on a farm, I knew that the work could be complemented and supported by looking at some of the challenges through a scientific lens.

How do you decide what tools to spend money on and whether they will be a good investment for your farm? I think a lot of us go with our gut feelings for smaller tool purchases and base the decision largely on our perception of how much “pain” the tool will relieve, whether that be the actual physical exertion pain, the pain of frustration at our current tools or lack of tools making a job hard to do, or even impossible to do. The promise of a tool saving time is often the motivator, but how often do you actually calculate out the full cost of the time savings versus the cost of purchasing and maintaining the bright, shiny new tool? How can we incorporate savings other than just time into the calculation?

There are only two ways to increase the profits of your flower products: increasing the price of the product or decreasing the cost of production. When increasing our prices is not feasible, we can decrease the cost of production by being more efficient with our time and resources. By improving our efficiency, we minimize our inputs, and therefore, maximize our profits. 

Selling vegetables to chefs can either be very satisfying or turn into a nightmare: isolated orders, outstanding invoices, and last-minute calls. Still, when it works, restaurants and caterers can be a stable and interesting way to increase farming incomes. Here are some essential ingredients to make the most of it based on my experiences and those of other farmers who grow exclusively for chefs or not.