Month: November 2013
Not-So-Obvious Secrets to a Successful Farm Business
Reblogged from Hannah Teresa @Articlebase
In the world of business, having sufficient seed capital may often seen by many as a primary fuel to run the venture’s engines. What many don’t know is that this doesn’t always guarantee a successful run of one’s envisioned business.
When it comes to building a farm business, this principle definitely holds water. As a matter of fact, it’s not that difficult to take on this commercial arena when you’ve got sufficient capital at your disposal. Nevertheless, making that initial investment produce profit is an entirely different matter that will require you to dig beyond what money can usually resolve.
According to surveys, the most successful farming businesses in various countries didn’t usually have the biggest of capitals but they all paid attention to detail in their everyday tasks. Whether a farm entrepreneur used farm management software or had an eye on minimising costs, such simple strategies often had a huge impact on the overall longevity of the business.
Aside from these two, there are other things that successful farm entrepreneurs have in common. Speaking of which, here are some of them:
- Tight focus on overall finances
Among the primary challenges of running a farm is balancing operational costs with revenues, which is why successful farm entrepreneurs often have a keen eye on controlling costs and ensuring gross margins. Aside from ensuring a healthy cash flow, many of these well-performing farms notably have high net worth and low borrowings. Certainly, a lot of bookkeeping is involved in farming.
- Benchmarking against the competition
Running a farm can pretty much stuff your daily schedule but this shouldn’t be enough of an excuse for you to lose sights on what’s going on in and around the farming industry. Keeping up to date with industry developments and news through the media and local farm groups is undeniably a secret shared among the most successful farmer.
- Careful attention to detail
Many aspects are involved in running a farm without doubt. Whether it’s doing machinery maintenance, general farm work, bookkeeping, or simply overseeing the field operations, an aspiring farm entrepreneur has to be thorough in supervising each task. Any missed details can often have a huge impact on the entire operation later on.
While this may seem like a daunting requirement to fulfil, farmers luckily have access to technology like landmark software to help them fulfil various functions with efficiency.
- Flexibility in dealing with opportunities
To be truly successful in the farming industry, one has to be open to working with technologies out on the market specifically designed to improve specific areas of the entire operation. Investing in farm management software, for instance, wouldn’t be a bad deal to take since it can help one organise the tasks that one has to do through the course of a day. Other than this, one shouldn’t shy away from using state-of-the-art farm implements to improve the efficiency of your farming operation.
Successful farm entrepreneurs indeed have continually deployed such technological blessings, which has enabled them to stay above the pack.
These are some secret keys to becoming successful in the farming enterprise. And if you wish to join the ranks of those who have succeeded in the industry, you may have to take them to heart.
Gardening Chores for the Fall
Reblogged from Black Fox Homestead:
Our garden did well this year. I’m actually quite pleased with the progress we’ve made in just a short amount of time. One of the challenges that I’ve had though over these past few weeks has been the transition from the summer growing season into the fall growing season.
On our urban homestead, I hardly ever had enough produce to preserve (there wasn’t the growing space), and usually by August everything had petered out anyway (my priorities were different).
So come fall, there was really no difficulty in gearing back up again for the cool weather season.
This first year on our rural homestead we have had an abundance of produce to preserve, and since our summer was thankfully very mild, everything has just kept right on going. In the effort to keep up with the tomatoes and zucchini, I’ve found it difficult to get the lettuce, kale, and beet seeds in. Get them in, I did though, and now they are ready to harvest, not to mention there are still a few crops that need to go in. I’m struggling to find my groove here.
Canning tomatoes at Black Fox Homestead. We put up 14 quarts!
Here though are my list of things yet to be done, and if you are in the same boat (and same zone) that I am in, these may help you focus and prioritize.
1. Plant garlic.
I am so excited that this fall we have our own seed garlic saved over from what we planted last year. But please don’t ask me about the variety. After planting three different kinds of hard neck, and painstakingly trying to keep them separated at harvest, I gave up. But we have plenty, both for use in the kitchen and for planting. We’ve also decided to give soft neck a try, as well as elephant garlic, and I’m looking forward to the results. In our area (zone 6b), garlic can go in as late as November.
2. Plant fall annuals.
::snort:: That’s very. very. funny. Seriously. Who has time for that? I still want to try though because I think pansies will be very pretty on both my front and back porch.
3. Make sure you have what you need for extending the season.
You can read more about that here. This year our fall crops will go in eight raised beds that will be covered with a floating row cover. Husbie has been installing 9 gauge galvanized wire to hold the row cover just a few inches over the beds. Last year we used pvc pipe hoops in covered wagon style but found that there was too much cold air between the crops and the cover. Our first hard frost: we lost nearly everything. This year we’re trying a different approach (and suggestions are welcome).
4.Evaluate the past growing season.
I wrote more about that last week here, in this post. I would also recommend a gardening journal. This is the one that we use.
5. Evaluate your seed stash and make a list of what you will need for the spring.
When you get ready to do your seed shopping I would highly recommend using Mary’s Heirloom Seeds. We received a sampling last spring of several things including Black Beauty Zucchini, Pink Oxheart Tomatoes, and Danvers Carrots, all of which performed beautifully*. We also received some purple radishes which we enjoyed and allowed some to go to seed. We planted the seeds in our fall garden and are enjoying them again! Mary has taken the Safe Seed Pledge so all of Mary’s Seeds are organic non~hybrid, non~GMO, and open~pollinated varieties. She also offers free shipping on all orders and her prices are reasonble. Please consider her when making your plans for the spring!
Some things that I do not have time for at the moment but could be done now are:
*Plant bulbs
Here in my zone, as long as the ground is not yet frozen you can put in your crocus, Dutch Iris, and daffodil bulbs in now. I would really love to put some blue Dutch Irises in up against our red barn, but I just don’t have the time. Last year I did take the time to plant daffs around our pond and I look forward to enjoying them again in the spring.
*Plant perennials
Another thing I really don’t have time for at the moment but look forward to doing perhaps next year about this time. Fall is a great time to put in perennials as well as trees and shrubs. The mild weather now, and in the spring gives them time to establish themselves before the brutal heat of the summer.
And over the winter we plan to:
*Clean, repair, and oil our gardening tools
The key word there is “plan”. I have to confess though I have planned this every year and have yet to actually carry it out. It is an important task even though it is difficult to get to.
*Clean and organize the gardening shed, potting bench, or whatever work space you have
Even if you don’t have a fancy shed or bench (and we don’t, just an area in the barn), if you do extensive gardening you have all the tools and supplies necessary. In the winter, it will be too cold to go out and sort through things ~ now is the best time to do it. Make it fun. Set aside a Saturday afternoon, listen to some music, and organize that space so it will be a pleasure to work in next spring.
For the complete article, click here.
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