How to Make $20,000 From Your Backyard, Part 1

The Beet: A Podcast For Plant Lovers

Epic Gardening

Home & Garden, Education, Leisure, How To

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Making money from the produce you grow seems a lot less daunting when Ben Hartman breaks it down! Using the lean system helps, and reducing waste is key to making it pan out. Plan it, set goals, get to work, and you’ll have success. Epic Gardening Shop Homepage: https://growepic.co/41Uu9p8 Botanical Interests Shop Homepage: https://growepic.co/4aVuf3W Book Collection Page: https://growepic.co/3vvyC5A EG Homesteading Book: https://growepic.co/48TaqrV Connect With Ben Hartman: Ben Hartman is the author of The Lean Micro Farm (Chelsea Green, 2023) and The Lean Farm (Chelsea Green, 2016), winner of the prestigious Shingo Institute Research and Professional Publication Award. In 2017, Ben was named one of fifty emerging green leaders in the United States by Grist, and published a companion guide to The Lean Farm titled The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables. Ben and his wife, Rachel Hershberger, own and operate Clay Bottom Farm in Goshen, Indiana, where they make their living growing specialty crops on 1/3 acre of land in production. Ben has developed an online course in lean farming, which can be found at claybottomfarm.com The Lean Farm Books The Lean Farm Books on Amazon, Bookshop.org, Chelsea Green Website Instagram YouTube Facebook Website Shop the Store As an exclusive for listeners, use code THEBEET for 5% off your entire order on our store, featuring our flagship Birdies Raised Beds. These are the original metal raised beds, lasting up to 5-10x longer than wooden beds, are ethically made in Australia, and have a customizable modular design. Shop now and get 5% off your first order. Get Our Books Looking for a beginner's guide to growing food in small spaces? Kevin’s book, Field Guide to Urban Gardening, explains the core, essential information that you'll need to grow plants, no matter where you live! He also wrote Grow Bag Gardening to provide you with specialized knowledge that can bring you success when growing in fabric pots. Preorder Kevin’s newest book Epic Homesteading if you are looking to turn your home into a thriving homestead! Order signed... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	As a gardener and more specifically as a micro-green farmer I have a little bit of experience making some money from my backyard selling produce.
0:21.8	I mostly sold micro-g greens back in the day.
0:23.8	Obviously our guest has much, much more experience. Ben Hartman, author of the lean
0:28.0	micro farm and the lean farm and the farmer at Claybottom Farm.
0:31.6	So how to make 20,000 from your backyard?
0:35.2	I think and I know when people hear this for the first time,
0:38.6	then they just actually don't really think you can do that
0:42.3	and they don't know how to even begin. And so maybe we could
0:47.4	paint a picture of the possibility. Sure. Well, let me just explain how the math would work for one.
0:55.0	Let's say you have 5,000 square feet.
0:57.0	The size of many suburban backyards would have that amount of room.
1:01.0	And if you can sell just $4 a square foot,
1:06.2	then you've reached 20,000.
1:08.4	So ahead of lettuce at a wholesale market,
1:11.5	even in Indiana here, would sell for about two dollars ahead.
1:15.0	You might get three or four dollars at a farmer's market. A head of lettuce takes a square foot.
1:20.0	Okay, so if you fill that garden just with head lettuce and in most places in the US you can easily get two seasons often three seasons three rotations of head lettuce
1:31.4	Then with just two crops ahead lettuce the easiest crop there is to produce,
1:35.0	then you've reached your 20,000. Now the problem being that hard to find a chef or an account that wants that many heads and 4,000 heads at one time.
1:46.2	That's sure. So you've got to mix it up, little diversity, throw some tomatoes in there, but the good news is that
1:51.2	head lettuce is are one of the lowest grossing crops per square foot.
1:57.0	Tomatoes, carrots, spinach, a whole host of other crops sell for even higher.
	...

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