Ridgerunner
Garden Master
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2009
- Messages
- 8,227
- Reaction score
- 10,050
- Points
- 397
- Location
- Southeast Louisiana Zone 9A
I think @seedcorn got it. Most of the people in those statistics don't depend on the farm for a living. They just do something so they can get a tax credit for having a farm. Mom does that. She rents the 50 acre farm to someone to graze cattle for $700 a year and qualifies for "agriculture" on her property taxes. She's probably in those statistics. Someone I knew retired to acreage in New Mexico and grew lavender, not to make money but to qualify as a "farm" on taxes.
All Dad wanted to do was be a farmer. He wasn't a dummy. He was high school senior class president. The army made him an instructor, teaching GI's coming back from WWII how to farm until he got hos discharge after the war. Farming was his passion. But in the 50's he found he could not support a family on the farm, growing one cash crop a year (tobacco) and keeping cattle and selling the calves for money. To send us to school he had to get a job at the shirt factory, where he worked the loading dock and warehouse. He still raised the tobacco and calves, plus 2 acres of field corn and all the hay he could get from the land that was flat enough to mow, raised a big garden, milked a cow, had a separate potato patch, and managed to keep the fence rows cleared out. He was not afraid of work but even with all that, we were still classified as poor in the government statistics and in the social scene with the townies.
I don't keep records but I know I don't come close to breaking even with the chickens. I give my eggs away, some my wife sells at church with money going into a special fund there. The rest of the eggs we don't use go to a local food bank. My main reason for having chickens is meat, not the eggs. We eat one chicken a week, Thursday and Saturday nights. One chicken covers both meals.
We don't buy many vegetables, even in the winter. I canned 17 pints of corn yesterday and put another half pint of dried basil away. I don't know yet what I'll do today. I could freeze some black eyed peas, make some more pickles, or can some green beans. I'll probably use it as a day to clean things up instead of preserve something, though I'll probably get some more basil, oregano, or sage in the dehydrator. it just doesn't seem right to not have that dehydrator working this time of year. I've already got all the herbs we need, anything I do now will be given away. My brother-in-law came by yesterday. He took home 12 pints of chicken broth, a melon, green beans, corn, tomatoes, sweet peppers, eggplant, onions, and garlic. I give veggies away to friends and relatives plus give some to that food bank. I'll make several Christmas baskets with jelly and herbs. I guess that's a cost savings. We don't buy Christmas presents for several people.
What I do is not farming. I garden because I like to grow things. I really enjoy just picking something fresh from the garden and eating it there. I'm happy to just pull a carrot, wipe most of the dirt off it, and eat that without washing, peeling, or otherwise sterilizing it. I've got a cherry tomato by the garden gate for no other purpose than to snack on while I'm out there. Preserving is not nearly as much fun as growing but that goes along with it and there is a lot of satisfaction of just grabbing something from the freezer or a jar from the pantry for supper. From April through most of October, we eat something fresh from the garden practically every night. But my greatest pleasure is just growing things. That's why I garden.
All Dad wanted to do was be a farmer. He wasn't a dummy. He was high school senior class president. The army made him an instructor, teaching GI's coming back from WWII how to farm until he got hos discharge after the war. Farming was his passion. But in the 50's he found he could not support a family on the farm, growing one cash crop a year (tobacco) and keeping cattle and selling the calves for money. To send us to school he had to get a job at the shirt factory, where he worked the loading dock and warehouse. He still raised the tobacco and calves, plus 2 acres of field corn and all the hay he could get from the land that was flat enough to mow, raised a big garden, milked a cow, had a separate potato patch, and managed to keep the fence rows cleared out. He was not afraid of work but even with all that, we were still classified as poor in the government statistics and in the social scene with the townies.
I don't keep records but I know I don't come close to breaking even with the chickens. I give my eggs away, some my wife sells at church with money going into a special fund there. The rest of the eggs we don't use go to a local food bank. My main reason for having chickens is meat, not the eggs. We eat one chicken a week, Thursday and Saturday nights. One chicken covers both meals.
We don't buy many vegetables, even in the winter. I canned 17 pints of corn yesterday and put another half pint of dried basil away. I don't know yet what I'll do today. I could freeze some black eyed peas, make some more pickles, or can some green beans. I'll probably use it as a day to clean things up instead of preserve something, though I'll probably get some more basil, oregano, or sage in the dehydrator. it just doesn't seem right to not have that dehydrator working this time of year. I've already got all the herbs we need, anything I do now will be given away. My brother-in-law came by yesterday. He took home 12 pints of chicken broth, a melon, green beans, corn, tomatoes, sweet peppers, eggplant, onions, and garlic. I give veggies away to friends and relatives plus give some to that food bank. I'll make several Christmas baskets with jelly and herbs. I guess that's a cost savings. We don't buy Christmas presents for several people.
What I do is not farming. I garden because I like to grow things. I really enjoy just picking something fresh from the garden and eating it there. I'm happy to just pull a carrot, wipe most of the dirt off it, and eat that without washing, peeling, or otherwise sterilizing it. I've got a cherry tomato by the garden gate for no other purpose than to snack on while I'm out there. Preserving is not nearly as much fun as growing but that goes along with it and there is a lot of satisfaction of just grabbing something from the freezer or a jar from the pantry for supper. From April through most of October, we eat something fresh from the garden practically every night. But my greatest pleasure is just growing things. That's why I garden.
