This the fifth, and final post, in Theresa Gould’s series on her organic farming learning experience.
I know that it has taken me months to write up the conclusion of our Stateline Farm Beginnings course, but it has taken this long for it to truly conclude. Even though our course ended in February, we have continued our farm education via Practical Farmers of Iowa’s FREE “Farminars”, which they provided during the winter and early spring. Due to illness in our family and no childcare, my husband and I ended up switching off going to classes from November on. The classes we each went to we really enjoyed and learned a lot.
We had nearly given up hope of finding any land, even just to grow a family garden. However, this past spring we had the opportunity to look at a couple of properties for rent that are relatively close to our home, but would allow us to start out small in our vegetable production (highly recommended to first year farmers). Since this is our first year of farming, our plan is to plant a huge family garden to gain growing experience as a family. Year two, which will be next summer, we hope to add a Farmer’s Market and perhaps even start a small CSA, but I digress.
The plot of land we decided upon is owned by a Stateline Farm Beginnings graduate. She is scaling back this year to focus on her egg and meat production and being more of a mom. She is offering to rent us a 200’ x 80’ growing field FREE in exchange for fresh produce. There is irrigation in place, it is fenced in with a no-climb electric fence, has not had chemicals used on it and we even have use of her small tractor and tiller. What an opportunity! The only downfall is that it is 40 minutes from us, which will make this summer an adventure we are sure to remember! Since I began this post, we have since decided to only start with half the growing field to see how we manage it first.
Please stay tuned, as I hope to be able to keep you abreast of our farming journey.
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