Quitting Your Job To Farm on a Quarter Acre In Your Backyard?
Hey Steemit...
Imagine my surprise when I logged on to my YouTube channel after a long trip in Mexico with @ucsdsu and I saw that one of my videos went viral!
Imagine my greater surprise and joy when I realized it was the tour I did with my friend, Steven Cornett.
You see, he recently quit his job to go full-time farming in his own backyard on only a quarter acre! You might be thinking, "That seems a bit small..."
But Steven's a pro at market gardening, also known as high-yield biointensive farming. You may have heard of SPIN Farming or Curtis Stone's model of farming as well — it's very similar.
What I found so interesting about Steven's farm is that he's incorporating chickens, worm composting, and even black soldier fly larvae cultivation into his small plot. Usually you see that type of permaculture approach on properties with more space, but Steven is making it work even on a quarter acre in a suburban area!
He also subscribes to the "lazy gardener" approach that I outlined in my latest @dsound podcast, which you can listen to if you click to my profile.
For example:
- His chicken feeders hold up to 1 month of food
- His coop door is on a solar timer and opens at 6:00am on the dot without him having to do anything
- He uses local birds for caterpillar control
As you can see, there's a lot to learn from Steven and his farm. I took copious notes and am planning to go back and see the farm again this weekend!
Please let me know in the comments if there's anything you want me to ask him!
Thanks For Reading!
If this is your first time reading my writing, thank you! Please leave a comment so I can get to know you better.
My name is Kevin and I run Epic Gardening, a website, podcast, and YouTube channel. My goal is to teach 10,000,000 people how to grow their own food.
I'm a big believer in Steemit and decentralized platforms, so I'm going all in on Steemit, dtube, and dsound. Be sure to check me out there too! You'll find me writing about gardening, travel, health, and philosophy - I can't seem to stick to one topic :P
Thanks and happy Steeming,
Kevin
Kevin, I just found your channel. Thank You! I am a senior lady who is attempting to set up a deep mulch garden on my 2 acres of South Texas land. I will, eventually, grow the food my family eats, have a garden and an orchard, and perhaps even some small livestock. Again, thanks for what you do.
Thanks for the kind words! Deep mulch sounds pretty much mandatory in South Texas, eh? You should do a tour of your land on Steemit!
I have thought about doing a walk around, but right now the only thing to see is dead plants. We have had two separate deep freeze storm systems. (very unusual in this part of the country) and everything has suffered, Perhaps this spring when there is something interesting to look at.
Wow, that sounds intense. Looking forward to your spring walk around post :)
Congrats on having such a great video go viral! I have bookmarked this for tomorrow because my terrible internet won't let me play it. Black soldier fly larvae cultivation? I need to do some reading!
Oh no! It's worth a watch, I was just lucky that he let me do a half hour tour of his farm!
Great stuff, another awsome post keep them coming my friend
Thanks for the encouragement - I'll do my best!
oh its inspiring
You see, he recently quit his job to go full-time farming in his own backyard on only a quarter acre! ..
i also grow some vegetables like kales in sacks and this is served on dinner
Awesome, would love to see them!
Will check on my blog will be posting them. Thank you
Upvoted and following now
Appreciate it - back at you!
HI Kevin.... looking forward to more contents of yours... I have a top terrace where I have my summer vegetables in containers... I am an advocate of container gardening because I myself do not have a plot to plant my salad greens and cherry tomatoes.
So even if I am not a real homesteader from the countrtyside , I could still call myself as urbanhomesteader, right?! hehehe
100% - you can grow ANYWHERE, any amount is better than nothing! Plus it brings such peace to your life :)
I absolutely agree with you.. Can´t wait to see my cukes and cherry tomatoes this summer, again. I believe in growing them, perhaps sounds crazy but I talk to them and they talk back to me by giving me healthy fruits... have a look at these container cukes from last year.
I just found you on YouTube yesterday and now I stumble across you here! Great video/article with some really interesting ideas, I am planing to do some experiments on our acre here in wet and rainy Wales. Keep up the good work!
Hi - funny how that works, right? I'm sure @pennsif can share a thing or two about growing in Wales :)
That is right @halcyondaze, the internet has made the world an even smaller place! Love the fact that knowledge can be shared directly from the west coast of the USA to the west coast of Wales, or anywhere else for that matter.
Hello @h-perkins... would you keep bees by chance 😊
Glad you made it on to steemit...
Hi @pensif, it’s great to be here. The bees that have made it through the worst of the winter are enjoying some of the spring flowers now🐝
wow! hi @halcyondaze, good information, I like your publications, I am agroecologo among other things and eh worked with urban agriculture and organoponicos gardens ... I saw your blog and I liked, I follow you, greetings from Venezuela!
Oh wow, awesome! Love to meet other growers from different parts of the world. Hope I can make it down there soon :)
Hey man. I'll start by leaving you a proper comm. That ambition of yours is well directed. I must say I'm beyond impressed by these guys work, including you! You put this all together, and for me to stumble across these names gives me a new size of direction and well, knowledge on which plan or new moves could I make.
I'm not just a gardener. I'm a scientist and an engineer. What you accomplish with gardening and growing techniques is beyond my knowledge and education, for sure. So I bring the other half of it. The kind of system that we could build involves our waters and our skies as well. We could micromanage weather, amounts of oxygen and nitrogen in the air, etc. All metals are amazing but carbon keeps banging in my head for some reason (garbage). I found out that all of these amounts of elements can be well and better managed if we include heat, humidity (is that even the word for it?), and radiation, if you can separate it from heat or having different ranges that any day gives you (and night too, caves are a cool example, like heights).
What I'm trying to say is, if you bare with me I think we can come up with a little improvement on a different approach to you guys, only including some "science" tips, I can assure you that you won't feel that kind of information any hard to figure out. I'm talking about getting more involved in natural activities such as weather, storms, electricity and force, raw power in general. My main goal is to achieve a correct messure on every living being, and I'm pretty good at it. Cheers and hope to talk to you guys soon.
PS: I must great you again for this kind of attitude towards businesss and success. It's impressive that you aimed to 10M.