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S1 Ep 1: So You Bought A Farm
270 Plays2 years ago
So, you bought a farm. Now what? Join us for a conversation on things to think about when purchasing a farm or with newly acquired land. From marketing to soil testing and everything in between.
PRIMER for Selecting New Enterprises for Your Farm
Geographic Horticulture Directory of Kentucky
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu
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Transcript
Introduction and Panelist Roles
00:00:07
Speaker
Hey, welcome everybody to a podcast all about the culture of horticulture. My name is Alexis and I am a horticulture extension agent and I've got some other plant lovers with me today and someone will let them introduce themselves. Good morning. I'm Brett and I work in marketing for horticulture crops and some other stuff in local foods and sustainable agriculture. This is Josh and I work with the Center for Crop Diversification.
00:00:35
Speaker
And this is Ray. I'm a field agent here in the central part of Kentucky.
Weather and Gardening Inquiries
00:00:40
Speaker
And we are here, uh, podcasting from Kentucky, where it is a nice stormy day. And I think all of us are feeling the effects of, uh, just the Kentucky crud. I know I am, uh, got some weird, weird things happening up in the sinus cavity. Uh, how are you guys feeling? Better. I just had that last week, so it's been a little tough, but it's the time of year it must be.
00:01:04
Speaker
Yeah, I was woken this morning, as Garth Brooks would say, the thunder rolls and the lightning strikes. My love has not yet grown cold, but otherwise it was a nice, exciting way to start the morning.
00:01:17
Speaker
Yeah. What do they call this? An active weather day. I was getting lots of phone calls because here I know this week it's been unseasonably warm yesterday with 72 degrees here, at least in this part of the state. And you know, it's amazing how we start to get phone calls from homeowners and producers. I mean, number one, it's the time of year, but number two, it's, it's February and we have a nice day and it sort of activates all the gardeners, both. Pseudo-spring. Yeah.
00:01:44
Speaker
Emerging from my seasonal depression, clicking my heels. Not so sad anymore. Love the longer days. What are we talking about today, Alexis?
New Residents and Farming Guidance
00:01:55
Speaker
We thought, like Ray said, we're starting to get some of these phone calls, starting to have these people come out that's warm. They're starting to think about what they're doing. One thing that we've really noticed is a lot of people are new to Kentucky, moving to Kentucky or are moving back
00:02:10
Speaker
uh, to the farm. And so we're getting a lot of questions on, I bought a farm now, what do I do with it? Um, you know, whether it's something really small, because as we know, horticulture crops, you know, you can grow an acre of vegetables as a lot of freaking vegetables, you know what I mean? Uh, or, you know, they're doing some larger scale stuff. And so we just kind of wanted to talk about when, you know, you're coming in and you're like, I bought a farm now, what do I do? Right.
00:02:43
Speaker
both on campus and off campus, we all in our system probably get these questions. And it's an exciting question, but it's one that's sort of open-ended because then when I get a question like that in the field, I immediately go into investigative mode. I don't know about you guys, but when I get a question like that, there's all these gears that start turning in my head and all of these questions start to form on what I need to ask to find out more.
00:03:01
Speaker
That's a common question a lot of us get.
Romanticizing Farming and COVID-19 Trends
00:03:10
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder too if it comes in part out of the pop cultural projection or idea that farming and going back to farming and having a small farm is this romantic thing that- Cottagecore.
00:03:25
Speaker
premise for a Hallmark movie or something like that. Oh, sure. That absolutely has to be part of it. And I think COVID was no part, no small part of when we were all at home. I don't know about you all, but I saw a real resurgence in interest. I mean, the interest has always been there for home gardeners. But even on the commercial side, there is this interest since I don't know if it's people had more disposable time and they were just at home more, but more interest overall. So it seems like we had a spike.
00:03:53
Speaker
the last three years in, you know, folks that have questions like this, they had just purchased or somehow gotten their hands on a piece of land, and they either wanted to do personal food production, or they wanted to maybe do the next level up a market garden, or even that aspirations go to that next level of full blown commercial operations. But yeah, I've been getting more of those questions here lately. Fun questions, great questions, and it leads to great conversations. See if you'll agree with me on this. I think I would say the
00:04:22
Speaker
best time to think about what you're going to do with the 10 acres that you bought is before you bought them and when you're selecting where you're buying them and what they look like. But if you're in the position now of having bought 10 acres, we want to talk about some of the things that you might think about as well. But if you're just in that process of thinking about it and considering it, you're ahead of the curve and you might be able to make some
00:04:46
Speaker
good decisions about where you're, again, where you're buying, checking out the soil type, checking out the topography, all that kind of fun stuff as well as thinking about what would be a fun thing to grow or do with that land.
Aligning Farming with Personal Goals
00:04:57
Speaker
Right? Would you all agree with that? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. When we bought our farm, I was like, it's per a soil test.
00:05:05
Speaker
I had that in my contract. I have to get a good soil test and respond, but yeah, I mean, and it has to be about what excites you because just going back to what you said, Brett, like it's not, there's a thought process there, but it's, you know, you're going to be, I don't know if you're, if you're a woman or if you're not, you know, whatever you're into is just like running around in your cute apron and your sun hat and feeding the chickens and stuff. And while, you know, some days it occasionally
00:05:30
Speaker
very occasionally can be like that. Um, a lot of the times it's carrying water and, you know, two feet of snow uphill, both ways on something there, Lexus. And it always catches my attention when I'm listening to people, but you said it, it's like whatever kind of floats your boat or wherever your passion lies. And it seems like as an investigator, as we're trying to investigate and how we can best help people.
00:05:54
Speaker
in achieving their goals is realizing what exactly their goals are, what are their passions, what motivation have led them to the point of wanting to look for the purposes of the conversation today, maybe assuming a newer producer, but what has led them to that point? And that's an interesting story.
00:06:12
Speaker
in itself. And like Brett said, if they've already acquired land or have land of some sort, you have to ask, well, have you checked into the capabilities of the land? Or even before you ask that, like Alexis said, kind of what floats your boat? What gets you excited? What's your knowledge and skills? And why are you doing this?
00:06:37
Speaker
And I'll just add to rain a little bit on the parade and dampen those sun hats and pretty aprons with some marketing and economic considerations. But if your if your passion
00:06:49
Speaker
includes making some money off this thing, then that's something you're going to need to be thinking about from the get go. Because if you if you're really passionate about growing heirloom decorative cucumbers, and there's nobody who wants to buy those things, if you're passionate about it, then grow all the cucumber decorative cucumbers you
Farming as Hobby vs. Business
00:07:13
Speaker
want to grow. But
00:07:14
Speaker
If you're passionate in wanting to make some money off of it, that's also just a consideration. It's a consideration with where you're buying the land, where you're going to sell it, how you're going to sell it, and also your skill set and your interest in even doing any of that selling stuff.
00:07:26
Speaker
I just wanted to kill a little bit of the buzz. You guys were getting a little too excited about plans. It rains in my brain a lot is I've heard somebody say, do you have a hobby or do you have a business? And if you are, and it's okay to have one or the other, it's okay to have both. And so if you're not making money off of what you're doing, you have a hobby.
00:07:46
Speaker
And that's fine. Like if that's what you want to do, but if you want it to be business, then you have to make money off of it. And so thinking about what excites you keeps you motivated in those hard times of business. Um, but you also need to be thinking about, you know, markets, uh, where, who you're going to sell to. What's your ideal market? Do you like dealing with people like at a farmer's market or are people really annoying to you and you want to sell wholesale because I get it.
00:08:10
Speaker
And then like kind of some resources that are available to you. Equipment, time. Do you have, you know, some money coming in from, you know, your favorite? So many topics. So many topics. And you guys have hit on something that's a big deal for me. I've worked, you know, an extension both as an Ag and Natural Resources agent for several years and then went specifically more specialized into horticulture.
00:08:34
Speaker
And I noticed that on the ag and natural resources side, when I was talking about row crops and cattle, there is indeed marketing strategies and efforts that go into that. However, there are established market channels in the state for those things, but I've often noticed in horticulture, there's a significant difference. You guys mentioned two things, production and marketing. In horticulture,
00:08:56
Speaker
a lot of times, especially if you're smaller or you're doing direct marketing, such as through a community supported ag or CSA, something like that, you have to create your own market. And that that's a big difference that cannot be understated. Because I think that's a great place to start, Brett, is that if you are indeed wanting to make money, and that's one of my early questions is, well, have you talked to anyone have what makes you think that you can sell, you know, this many eggplants or turnips or
00:09:24
Speaker
radishes or dahlias or whatever. There is a distinction and I handle those two questions different. Production and marketing are two different things, especially in horticulture where a lot of times you are your own marketer. Yeah, so I think in this commercial ag world, or sorry, commercial horticulture world, there are many avenues that we hope to explore over the coming weeks and months and years. But so if I could just, if you aren't, if you all aren't aware, Alexis and Ray,
00:09:54
Speaker
deal with these questions directly. People come into them and asking them these questions and talk to them. So I'm just curious from your all's perspective, can you tell me what that conversation looks like? How do you start that conversation with someone when they come and ask you that? Like in a real basic to like Denzel Washington in Philadelphia, explain it to me like I'm a five-year-old. How do you have that conversation? What are some of the first
Key Questions for Aspiring Farmers
00:10:18
Speaker
things you do?
00:10:18
Speaker
So for me, like, and we've kind of already hit on it and I won't, you know, go too far into it, but the first one is why do you want to farm? And from that you can pick out, do you want to hobby? Do you just want to provide for your family and homestead or do you want to have a business?
00:10:32
Speaker
Then if we go that business route, which I think is mostly what we are focusing on like, you know, through this podcast is kind of that business route. Um, you know, again, talking about crops that excite you and a lot of time they don't know. And so, you know, we talk about, I said, reach into what those resources are. So, you know, did you already buy a tractor? Do you need to buy a tractor? Uh, are you going to be doing this full time or is this going to be something that you come home and work?
00:10:58
Speaker
until dark after your full-time job. So those are kind of the first questions I ask. What about you, Ray? Along those same lines, yes. I usually back up and it's sometimes surprising, especially if someone's completely new, but they have aspirations to farm and make some profit from that is I ask a lot of questions about their family. You know, how big is your family? How much time do you want to devote to this? Have you talked to your family?
00:11:21
Speaker
about your plans and I have straight-up caused arguments in my office between couples because maybe they haven't discussed as much as they should how much time this is going to take and I've just straight caused arguments before but that's good you have to be explicit about those things and talk about that is it going to be something that as Alexa said are you going to do it after your other job or is it going to be something you're going to do as a part-time job
00:11:49
Speaker
And if you have kids, how involved are they going to be or do you think they're going to be if they're teenagers? And if you talk to them about that. That's kind of where I start with the conversation is I kind of back up and this comes from sort of the family and consumer side over the years, as I've heard, you know, some of those folks talk about family goals and family time and family planning. I really start from there.
00:12:12
Speaker
Because I back up, especially if it's someone new, and I ask about their family structure, and that kind of leads into what Alexis already alluded to, is how much time you're willing to devote to it. Because it's going to take time if you're in it to kind of win it and make a profit eventually. Yeah. Josh, we have, so through the Center for Crop Diversification that Josh mentioned earlier, we have this little
00:12:35
Speaker
do dad, we call the biz quiz. And Josh has actually been going through and seeing some of the trends and how people answer. And you can access that on the Center for Crop Diversification website. Josh, what is the what are the kind of main main variables that we look at in that?
Biz Quiz and Crop Selection
00:12:50
Speaker
Oh, we basically the question, you know, like Brett said, is there or it's there to answer that question of what should I do? Not really answer that question, but start guiding the conversation of what should I do now that I have some land or I'm considering
00:13:04
Speaker
acquiring some land, what horticultural crops might work for me, and it looks at or asks questions about capital or access to, you know, what kind of access they have to money, as well as land and size, you know, over an acre, under an acre, that sort of thing, as well as their access to labor besides just themselves.
00:13:28
Speaker
and through their answers to that question it kind of comes up with I believe there's eight different kind of archetypes you could say that it gives recommendations on here's crops you might consider that fit well with what you've got going on and here's crops you would probably want to avoid based on you know what your obstacles are and that's essentially what it does and it's been running for about four years now
00:13:53
Speaker
It's a really great tool, and I ran someone through that recently, and I know that that person had, what was it? They had limited access to land, and they had more of a limited access to capital, and they were pretty risk averse. They didn't want to assume a lot of risk, and it spit out some options just to start them thinking. Things like sweet corn, I believe, was one of the options. And I got to thinking about that, and I was like, that's pretty good.
00:14:22
Speaker
because it's taking a crop that's there's already pretty much a market for because that's a well-known product and it seems like no matter if you have a couple of people already growing that crop in the community there's always room for more fresh sweet corn and it's something that's intensive it's short season it's one season you can grow it one season on a smaller kind of piece of land and do really good with that if you do a good job and manage that and i thought that was pretty good and they were well pleased and
00:14:51
Speaker
And so I love to kind of refer people to that resource. It's a great resource. Brett, I'm glad you brought that up. Josh, it's really good. It's a good jumping off point. Alexis, you've worked with with cut flowers.
Marketing Challenges for Specialty Crops
00:15:04
Speaker
If someone was interested in cut flowers, what would be things that they needed to do that or if they didn't have it, that would be difficult that you think if you were steering someone or they were they were thinking about that.
00:15:17
Speaker
Is it, there's no labor involved in it, right? Yeah, no, no labor at all. It's a lot of Sunday automated. Take care of all the labor. You never ever have to actually read anything. Um, so it's great. Now that's complete sarcasm for the because you guys can't see my face right now.
00:15:35
Speaker
But yeah, so I think the thing with cuts, well for any specialty crop, right, which is pretty much horticulture crops for the most part is you really got to think about your market and you've got to really look at yourself and the way you want to market because I think a lot of people
00:15:54
Speaker
are interested in farming because they like to be away from people. Maybe they're leaving a desk job or a place where they're communicating with people a lot and they want to just kind of be by themselves. Maybe they're a bit more introverted and farming is very appealing to introverts, I think, in a lot of ways.
00:16:14
Speaker
Uh, but like, you know, Ray was saying earlier, you've got to market yourself. So thinking about, you know, are you going to do a roadside stand? Do you need to go to farmer's market? And if you're going to go to farmer's market, which one? And if you're doing something like a specialty cut flower or a very weird ornamental gourd, something that's not edible, especially, uh, you've got to find the right farmer's market or the right market because those are not, um,
00:16:44
Speaker
Those are additional things. Those are extra money in your pocket type of, uh, products versus, you know, at least I can eat an eggplant or eat a watermelon or sweet corn, uh, and provide for my family or myself that way. Uh, but flowers, ornamental things are extra. So, so thinking about. Do the people in your area, do the people you want to sell to have those extra funds to spend, um, on, on your crop because.
00:17:11
Speaker
Why grow it if you can't sell it? I mean, yeah. That's something Alexis, that's a great point. Being one of my positions that I held was in the eastern part of the state, had a lower density of population. We were farther away from a population center, whereas my current location where I work out of, which is county-based,
00:17:33
Speaker
within 30 minutes from large populations over 300,000. Alexis, I think cut flowers are a great case study. Did that play into cutting your mind? Was that a consideration geographically where you were located? I'm very curious about the cut flowers because I'm sure that market was not established, like sweet corn might be established. There were already people doing that within
00:17:59
Speaker
the central part of the state i'm sure but not a lot of them so it's kind of a new thing so how did you decide like i mean on a crop like that that's interesting to me sure so i i would think you will find any um i don't have numbers to back this up at the moment but i would confidently say that any ornamental type thing again if you're going back to gourds cut flowers cut flowers i'm familiar with so we'll go with that one uh are going to be within probably an hour of a major place because that's where
00:18:27
Speaker
Any market you want to do so if you're gonna sell to a wholesaler they're gonna be in a major Metropolis area because they're gonna sell to florist if you're gonna sell to the florist again, they're gonna be where the people are farmers markets the same way It can be difficult There is a big push in cut flowers for the agritourism side and I think that's growing You know, you got strawberries you got your mums you got sunflower fields all kinds of stuff, but there's like a you pick so I think
00:18:56
Speaker
even then you need to be within, people are not going to drive more than an hour to come pick flowers or to pick strawberries or something. So if you're doing a specialty crop that's expensive, you've got to be where the people are. And sometimes that's not great when you're doing your soil test and you're like, oh, there is rock 24, like 12 inches below the surface and it's not ideal to grow stuff in.
00:19:23
Speaker
But, you know, it is possible. And I think we have enough areas, at least in the state of Kentucky, we've got kind of these hubs, right? Like if you look, uh, Northern Kentucky, there's one, you know, got Louisville bowling green. We've kind of got these hubs popping up. And if you look at CCD as that cut flower map, uh, and if you look, they're really centralized kind of around those big hubs. Um, because that's, you got to drive to them. That's one of those things, I think, where if you.
00:19:51
Speaker
if you're in the process of considering buying a farm, you have a leg up on this because proximity to markets is one of the things that sometimes people tend to overlook, I think. Or they just kind of assume that there's gonna be a market. Back to what you're saying, Ray, there's not a tomato elevator, like there's a grain elevator available in the state. And so considering where your markets are, because not only
00:20:19
Speaker
Will it determine whether or not you are gonna feel like or be able to afford driving to get access to a market?
00:20:28
Speaker
but there's also different types of markets and we tend to see different types of prices, different kinds of demand for different products in those places. And shockingly, just like if you live in a city, all the places that are really cool are more expensive and then you move further out or you move to other areas and it's less expensive. It's the same way with a lot of land prices with proximity to markets because people want to live closer to cities and maybe they do want to live closer to places where they're going to market and they'll be able to sell
00:20:58
Speaker
So in our example of Kentucky, I tell this, this is several years ago now, but on a given Saturday,
00:21:07
Speaker
In the fall, we do some price reporting. Apples in the south central part, fairly rural part of the state were selling for 89 cents a pound. In Lexington, which is central Kentucky, second largest city in the state, they were selling for $2 a pound. And in Louisville, the largest city in the state, they were selling for $3 a pound. These are just kind of generic apples locally grown at farmers and being sold at farmers markets. And there was that variability in price.
00:21:37
Speaker
But there's all kinds of things to consider because if your rent or your mortgage is three times as much, well, you're going to have to factor that into the things that you're deciding. Or your vendor fees. Yeah, absolutely. It's a whole avenue of weighing those costs. Hopefully, as people are listening and they maybe get frustrated when they ask someone, I have 10 acres and they want an easy answer for what they should do. Hopefully, you're getting a little insight into the little hamster wheels that are spinning inside of all of our heads when we try to
00:22:07
Speaker
answer that in a pithy way, because it really can be fairly involved. It doesn't have to be complicated, but it does have a lot of moving parts.
00:22:16
Speaker
Marketing is one thing. I mean, it's a huge piece of the puzzle, access to population. I know we used to go into three different states and it seems like everything was two hours to get to a population center. And that just added when we were personally producing years and years ago, is it just took time and resources to truck crops.
00:22:38
Speaker
and get them on location. And we just had to add that in as sort of a variable cost. But there's another piece to this.
Community Connections and Resources
00:22:45
Speaker
I mean, the podcast is Hort Culture. And there's a big cultural piece to this aspect of farming. And by that, I'll kind of relate my personal situation that I was just talking about years ago. We were in an area in the eastern foothills, and there were not as many farms of the top that we had. There is not as many farms in the area.
00:23:06
Speaker
And we always felt like we were somewhat isolated. Not only that, I mean, there was farm meetings going on for cattle and at that time there was tobacco in the state, but there wasn't a lot of farms around us. So we didn't have this kind of safety net of people we could borrow equipment from. So there was this whole cultural aspect and that's something I like to discuss with people too, just so that they consider that. But not only that, but you guys have something that always reminds me of this.
00:23:34
Speaker
It's the geo map of where you can purchase supplies for horticulture in the state and I refer to that all the time and Brett and Brett or Josh maybe you guys can give us some more information on that but that's a big deal. Where do you buy your supplies? Where does Alexis get supplies for cut flowers? And that is always in my mind because before shipping became cheaper
00:23:55
Speaker
We used to have to drive to Lexington to get supplies, which was two and a half hours away when something broke. And that's part of the cultural aspect of farming. That's a big deal to me. It left a big mark on me at a young age.
00:24:06
Speaker
Now the area that I'm in now, there's many, many more farms. It's predominant farming community, and that's a wonderful safety net. I love that farming culture, but not everybody is as lucky to have that. But that map, who does that? Brett or Josh? That'd be me. I mean, lots of people kind of collect the data and send it my way. I just love that. It's a great resource. Kind of into some people can interact with.
00:24:34
Speaker
Yeah. What else listed on there, Josh? Ray mentioned the horticulture suppliers. What else is on there? Uh, let me pull it up just to make sure I'm not forgetting anything, but, um, the, let's see. So it's horticulture suppliers. Currently we're also listing, um, Ag tourism sites, roadside stands, uh, the produce auctions, which also has links to their schedules.
00:25:02
Speaker
And all these things, you know, they list their kind of contact info associated with the email address website if they got one. But other resources we have on there are places that, or sites that have registered with that Kentucky, or the, what is it, the CATE program. I always forget what that stands for, but it's, you know, the shared equipment that's available.
00:25:25
Speaker
In counties, we try to have an updated list of what equipment is available at those sites.
00:25:35
Speaker
Yeah, let me make sure I'm not forgetting anything. I think there's about... There's so much information on that website. It's awesome. It's really good. That's another site, that link that I send to new producers, especially in horticulture, where sometimes it can be a little bit harder to track down like a supplier for coverings for hoop houses or low tunnel places. So that's why I really enjoy that. It's a good one. The two that I forgot, it's got the farmer's markets listed on there.
00:26:04
Speaker
and also water testing labs for the ag water kind of compliance for people that are needing to test their water.
Water Testing and Equipment Needs
00:26:14
Speaker
That's a good thought. That's something that I think a lot of people don't think about is like how are, especially if you're going food, how are you going to wash your product or not wash your product? And do you need to wash your product? And there's a whole system there about
00:26:29
Speaker
about that. When you think about it, when you start doing your research on crops or markets, there's a lot more to it than just growing it. It's all the cooling and all of that on the post-harvest end. Yeah. There's just something that's been mentioned about this tension of if you haven't yet purchased your farm, and understandably people come to land in a lot of different ways might be
00:26:58
Speaker
inheritance, they might not have that kind of choice and where to go. But if you do,
00:27:04
Speaker
You know, there's a lot of things that are impacting you, your proximity to markets or as Ray said, your proximity to sort of suppliers that you would need for certain products or, um, you know, to replace equipment. And those, that, that proximity to those places can influence kind of land values and, you know, who's around you, uh, what's around as far as the community goes. It's, there's a lot of things that, that weigh on that. And, uh, yeah.
00:27:31
Speaker
at least with the masks, we try to tell you where things are. And not to debbie down, if you've already bought land or have land and you're like, oh crap, I'm that person who's two or three hours away from some stuff, not a big deal. I mean, it's just reworking. You may not have as many options for what you grow or how you market.
00:27:51
Speaker
You know, but maybe you look into freezing things or doing wholesale options so that you're only traveling once a week versus, you know, a couple times. So there are options. Nobody like panic. I'm like, I'm in the worst place ever. You're not. There are. And that's the beauty of it, of what there's so many ways people eat or people enjoy horticulture crops. And there's a definite balance point. There's a pro anicon.
00:28:17
Speaker
that if you're a farm and there's no other farms of your top really, really close to you, that's a pro anicon. It's like you want farms in the area, but you may not want necessarily 20 farms right next to you growing the very same thing. That can be a good and a bad thing, depending on how we discuss that. But yeah, if you're located in an area and you have a unique product and you're the only one
00:28:41
Speaker
growing that unique product you may be able to in certain circumstances command a higher price for that but the flip side of that is if you're in an area and there's lots of vegetable farms you have to take that into account also because there may be five other farms that have the exact same product as you and as Alexa said you have to really take a hard look at your final final product
00:29:03
Speaker
And kind of how you deal with that, how you package that. If you're growing blueberries, you're going to need cooler space or some kind of specialty equipment in a lot of these situations. And that's another unique aspect of I think horticulture production is it involves lots of specialty equipment. It really does. And I say that having
00:29:21
Speaker
you know, worked with cattle and tobacco and row crops. And then on the hort side, when it got into hort, we had a lot of smaller equipment. In our case, you want to have a few acres of hort crops, but lots of different types of equipment. Lots of hand tools. Yes. Not toys, they're tools. Every time I go to buy something new now just for home, I get into trouble. But yeah, there's lots of really cool tools in the hort biz too. Yeah, absolutely.
Therapeutic Benefits and Local Impact
00:29:51
Speaker
And something you touched on earlier, Ray, was this idea of this hort culture, this name of the podcast. And I think we want to acknowledge, in addition to the idea of things being like a business or a hobby, I may add a third category or multiple third, fourth, fifth categories where
00:30:12
Speaker
Growing stuff can serve a lot of different roles in people's lives. It can play a role of actual, not the kitschy, oh, this is therapy, but legitimate therapeutic purposes that we're seeing emerge from horticulture being involved in recovery for
00:30:30
Speaker
domestic abuse survivors and for refugees from traumatic places, but also in parts of the state where there aren't as many opportunities and they're struck by crisis, whether that be environmental crisis like the flooding in Eastern Kentucky or the tornado in Western Kentucky.
00:30:51
Speaker
Horticulture can play a really important role in community level resiliency. It's where the idea that food sharing is just such a normalized and important part and none of those things hit the market in terms of dollar exchange. Sometimes they're lost in translation or they're not really emphasized by people who want to see dollar impact.
00:31:14
Speaker
But those things are the lifeblood of some communities, and they're the entire reason that people have a big garden in their rural spaces. And so if that's you, if you're out there, Alexis mentioned homesteading is kind of another variation on that similar theme, the idea of increasing or even achieving self-sufficiency or family-level self-sufficiency. It's also at that community level, community resilience and support and sufficiency.
00:31:39
Speaker
And so if that is you, there's a place for you here too, because the production side is going to be similar. You're going to want to produce plants that don't have a ton of disease issues and that are harvestable and usable and all those things because you're just because you're not selling them to somebody doesn't mean that it's not worth something. And it's worth a lot actually.
00:31:57
Speaker
I just wanted to mention that real quick. We've been talking about marketing and I work a lot in marketing and it's mainly because people tell me they want to make money. And so that's what I'm trying to do is to help them do that. But if that's, if your, your goals are different, there's, I think there's a big place of part of horticulture and historically that was a bigger part of horticulture than ever selling fruits or vegetables was, uh, was kind of a growing things for your own consumption at a local level.
00:32:22
Speaker
and for your neighbors and your community. Those are hard numbers to capture too, Brett. That's a great point. Part of our job is from time to time, we're called upon to say, well, what's the magnitude of
00:32:33
Speaker
production in your area, what impact is production in your area. So kind of going back to the victory garden model, it's really hard to capture because it's a local food system. It's just that. It's a local food system and has lots of different tiers with people doing lots of different things. And a lot of those, and I've worked with producers that they're retired from jobs.
00:32:56
Speaker
and their goal is, I work with a couple, their goal is to produce every year food for food banks, and they do some really interesting things. They produce a lot of food, but is that ever captured on economic reports? No, probably not, at least not any that I know of, but that's a great point because, I mean, it's all part of the fabric, kind of local food systems, and that's a part of it, yeah. And that's the profit of you, to you, as a producer, if it's accomplishing your objective, then it has value to you.
00:33:25
Speaker
That's your value, but it may not be in a strict economic sense. Yeah. Everybody has either given or received.
00:33:34
Speaker
Hopefully, if you haven't hit me up, I'll get with you. Either fresh tomato or some flowers that somebody grew and it's just the look on their face, whether you're doing this to sell money or to make it to sell money. I wish. I wish I had so much I could sell it. I want to sell you this dollar for $125.
00:33:59
Speaker
That's how we do things no, but it's the the excitement and smile and what that that feeling that brings back to the people receiving it Brett is right. He's he's he's the heart here at the hort culture podcast I like to think or I'm over here like make money. I'm gonna sell you this dollar bill. Okay now, you know where we all stand One thing just to kind of
00:34:23
Speaker
I guess sort of wrap up whether or not you are getting started or maybe you're just a couple of years in, which I think this, again, this podcast is for you, whether you're getting started or you've been doing this a couple of years.
Adapting Practices and Balancing Needs
00:34:38
Speaker
Don't necessarily expect to be doing the same thing in year three that you were in year one. Maybe some of the same things. Maybe you are and you got it right the first time.
00:34:48
Speaker
farming is all about adjusting with the seasons, what went wrong, what went right, and whether that's I need to make sure I'm doing some row cover on my cucumbers or I need to market better, whatever it is, you're probably going to be doing something different and you're going to learn about yourself as that process, what you like to do, what you enjoy. Wow, I really hate picking zinnias.
00:35:11
Speaker
because they really give me a rash on my arm. So I'm just not going to grow them anymore. And you might make those decisions based on your own personal likes and dislikes, as well as what sells and what doesn't sell. And that's all a part of it. And don't be scared to change that up. You're allowed to make a choice to not do something, even if it is selling. If you really hate it, don't grow it. Life's too short, right? And farming is too hard to grow something you really don't like.
00:35:40
Speaker
there's a lot to that getting that fit. And I see people that getting a fit that's right for you and your family. And I've worked with people and they've been doing it pretty intensively for 10 years and they are still tweaking what they grow and assessing why they grow it. And is that product meeting their needs, both their labor needs, family goals, all of that, it goes into it. It's one of those things that's a classic example of this conversation today is,
00:36:07
Speaker
Well it depends you know us in sociology that have a little bit of background in that we love to say well it depends well there's no right or wrong answers today it's. Just does the end results accomplish what you wanted to do and if it personally works for you now that's different on an economic level.
00:36:25
Speaker
But it's sort of broad today and that's the nature of the topic that we're talking about. It's kind of, we'll narrow down. This is a great jumping point. I love this conversation. It's a great jumping off point for future podcasts. There's so much we could jump into, so many different avenues here. So I'm just trying to think of like, what are a couple of the key points we've covered today? So I think one is, if you haven't bought yet,
00:36:47
Speaker
location, location, location is on the selection of the land. Thinking about what's important to you and what your values are and what your goals are for this whole deal.
00:37:00
Speaker
I think another one is, and this is one that I come across a lot, is that don't assume that there are these markets for the things that you want to produce out there that you're just going to tap into. In many cases, you're either going to have to completely create or help co-create your market for your products, even if you do have access to something like a farmer's market. Right, a business plan. Even if it's on the back of an envelope, do a little bit of thought there.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah. And I think maintain an open mind, Lex, is kind of what, to your point about the don't, don't expect to keep doing the same thing in year three, but also be open to the fact that maybe your initial idea during the ideas phase was a not great idea for you and you can change it. And you can, I tell people that we kill as many dreams or more dreams than we inspire by telling people, don't do that because you may not make money doing that. Or you're, you know, it's going to be very difficult to grow that here.
00:37:55
Speaker
And I think that that's a part of it too. Anybody else have any take homes for the?
Production vs. Marketing Challenges
00:38:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we've talked about there's definitely a delineation between production and marketing. That's a big one to me just because it's horticulture tends to be a bit more unique in that we just don't have a, we can't grow, you know, an acre of tomatoes. In some cases, if you have a local co-op and you've done your homework and work it out, there might be a spot you could just take those and drop them off and then you're done.
00:38:22
Speaker
That's not typically the case from my experience, especially with my local producers I work daily with, is that they do create their markets and it takes just as much time marketing as it does producing if you're doing a good job and you have a unique product that's going to be a high value product. However many hours you plan on producing, plan that many hours on marketing in many cases. The other ones we mentioned about your access to land,
00:38:49
Speaker
capital and labor.
Labor Management and Sustainability
00:38:50
Speaker
I think labor is an important one to consider just because what is attractive about farming is that, you know, in theory, you can kind of create your workday, right, by determining your production system and things like that. But you can also kind of create your own prison, someplace you can never leave because there's too much to do. Very fun to really think about. And so, you know, to kind of Brett's point of
00:39:16
Speaker
Sometimes we kill dreams. I think it's okay to kill a dream as long as you're preventing a nightmare.
00:39:23
Speaker
Ooh, profound. I like that. Don't burn the candle at both ends. I'm allowed to say that because I do that. It's bad. Don't do that. My dad's motto, he said, well, do it till you don't like it anymore. I'm like, oh, wow. You're really selling this farming idea. There's some sustainability aspects here in horticulture that we're going to try and focus on. But anyways.
00:39:48
Speaker
Just wrapping this up. Any other last minute little, you got quick, you got 10 seconds. What you got? Anything? Nope. All right. Do it. Do it. Gross stuff. Growing stuff is a good thing.
Closing Thoughts and Encouragement
00:39:58
Speaker
It's good for you. It's good for the world around you. It can make you happy, but make sure it is making you happy.
00:40:03
Speaker
And go see your extension agent if you're in, well, if you're anywhere in the United States, but if you're in Kentucky, you have one in your county, go see them. Okay. That's my plug. Uh, anyway, so, uh, we hope you stick around. We hope you come back and listen to all the cool things we're going to talk about production, marketing, all that jazz. Uh, and we are hort culture and we hope that as we grow this podcast, you grow with us and we'll see you next time.