Any hobby farmers out there?

50 acres a hobby farm is not...that's a full time job! Heck, I only have 2 acres and it keeps me pretty busy...busier than I expected or wanted to be. Granted, when it is properly landscaped, setup, and planted, it won't be that much work. That said, my neighbor with 10 acres and 10-15 head of cattle and a dozen goats is out there toiling every day...hard...work...beyond...hobby.

Think this on thru very, very carefully.

R
 
travelover said:
TBN haunter here. I started the HF Tools that don't suck thread.
Click to expand...

Yes...You got a looooong thread going there! There's also a HF Tools thread that aren't worth anything, too! I am Redbug, over there. Ha!
 
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Rambler said:
50 acres a hobby farm is not...that's a full time job! Heck, I only have 2 acres and it keeps me pretty busy...busier than I expected or wanted to be. Granted, when it is properly landscaped, setup, and planted, it won't be that much work. That said, my neighbor with 10 acres and 10-15 head of cattle and a dozen goats is out there toiling every day...hard...work...beyond...hobby.

Think this on thru very, very carefully.

R
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Couldn't agree more!

I have a garden and I will spend on average each week at the grocery store (May to November) about $3 to $7 depending what "once in a while" things I need like dried beans, mayo, ketchup, tp, soap, I buy 1 loaf of bread a week. I am buying things I can't or don't grow. I buy a 25# of rice at the health food store every 5-6 months. I go to Trader Joe's about once every 4 months but that's a $90 to $120 trip again depending what I buy -if I didn't buy chocolate and cookies it'd be 1/3 less.

I cut back on the number of each variety of plants that I grow as I can't eat it all though I will give some away and freeze some, I also grow for winter storage and have a fair amount still, no canning too much work.

The garden IS a lot of work! If you retired why would you want to run a 30 acre farm even if you ONLY cultivated 3-5 acres? Better think this one over! If you want to work hard from sun up to sun down then go for it, frankly I retired to relax and the garden, while it is well worth it as I save a lot of money, is a lot of work.
 
This can be a very expensive hobby....

My boss has 288 acres... about half is in timber, the other half is split between his living area and cattle...

He loses money big time on this... his land value has gone up a lot, but his cash flow is always negative...

It also is a lot of work... not something I would consider when retired....
 
Awww heck. If you like doing it...it ain't work! I think all you guys sitting in your swivel chairs in offices without windows spoiled you...

I do look at "Bob is the Oil Guy", on occasion. We live in a small world.

Here's a good set of gardening forums I log into every day, just like TBN and here:
The Bayou Gardener - Index

Donald, (Bayou Gardener), also has a bunch of videos that are fun to watch. You can look at them on Utube. Here's a taste:
Field Trip through the Vegetable Garden - June 2010 - YouTube
Weed Contol in the Garden - July 2012 - YouTube
Hilling Potatoes Growing a Vegetable Garden - YouTube
 
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Just reading through this thread as I didn't know about "hobby" farming. And, I also read about how much work a garden is and it brought back memories of childhood. I loved the summer time in Ohio but hated the hours and hours of weeding the garden.

This thread got me thinking about how interesting it might be to have a hydroponic garden. Not seen one in person but picked up on it a little through the internet. There are a couple commercial farms in our area and plan to visit one soon. I wonder what kind of investment it would take to start a little hydroponic garden? It might save a lot of weeding and all the ground preparation required to start a regular garden.
 
JOHNNIE36 said:
Just reading through this thread as I didn't know about "hobby" farming. And, I also read about how much work a garden is and it brought back memories of childhood. I loved the summer time in Ohio but hated the hours and hours of weeding the garden.

This thread got me thinking about how interesting it might be to have a hydroponic garden. Not seen one in person but picked up on it a little through the internet. There are a couple commercial farms in our area and plan to visit one soon. I wonder what kind of investment it would take to start a little hydroponic garden? It might save a lot of weeding and all the ground preparation required to start a regular garden.
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I think my parent referred to it as "putting food on the table" versus a hobby :D

I remember hating picking, then having to sit and shell the beans and peas. Then there was the canning...

Look into using raised beds. very little weeding, I build them out of 2x6 or 2x8s. Have tomatoes, squash, green beans, okra etc.
 
My grandparents had a "hobby" farm. Once you add livestock, the option to travel will virtually disappear. Animals can be particularly demanding. Without outside help, i.e., exceptionally good (experienced) neighbors or nearby family members, getting away for more than a couple of days will not occur. I spent many of my teen summers taking care of dairy cows, horses, pigs, sheep, rabbits, chickens and turkeys (memories that I will cherish forever, but I will not repeat as an "aging" adult). While the horses and sheep didn't require daily care, the rest did. There are no days off for weather or sickness. One of my friends tried his hand a raising cattle in retirement, at one time he had about 200 head. In the end, he lost money (not that hobbies are supposed to make money, but a farm can be a big investment). He discovered he made more money making hay or cutting hay for others. So now all the cows are gone and the tractor is all that remains. He enjoys the work that he does and can pursue any other activities on his own schedule. My humble recommendation would be to plant a large garden and see how that goes first. Sorry for being a little negative, but I remember a lot of hard work that went with the fun (I was a cowboy), but I always got to leave at the end of the summer.
 
Wow, well I've got lots to say, how much time do you have?

Seriously, I am there right now. We bought 30 acres of land 5 1/2 years ago as a weekend place with the goal of retiring there (in 2017). We are on track to retire and the farm is still high on our list, but I am not sure I believe in the phrase "hobby farm". I think about any farm is a working farm. And it is a LOT of work. Fortunately for us, my DH and I enjoy physical work but there are still times we question whether we want to do this in retirement or not. It is a looming and much talked about subject lately.

We have planted pecan trees and fruit trees, as well as berries. My DH keeps bees (has about 10 hives). We had two cows that then gave birth but ended up selling all 4 back to our dairy friend. They are now grazing our property but we don't have to worry about them. The drought hit the year after we bought our place and the year we bought the cows we had trouble finding hay and it was very expensive. And our goal was to only graze them, after all we had 30 acres and only 2 cows. But we are not there during the week (we live in a major city an hour and a half away) to rotate them and it got to be too much, especially when we'd get a call at night that our cow was out (only happened once) We have read everything by Joel Salatin and many other authors as well. We raised meat chickens one spring and processed them ourselves (with the help of the internet and YouTube videos). We very much enjoy The Stockman Grass Farmer periodical and the quirkiness of Countryside magazine. I make soap and we have experimented with cheesemaking. We had a garden one year (the year I stayed to raise the chickens for 10 weeks) but it is unrealistic to have a garden when you aren't there all the time.

As for tractors, we have a smaller John Deere that I absolutely love. And yes, the front end loader stays on all the time. It is a dream. I love mowing the pastures down after the cows move to the next pasture. We also have a JD zero turn mower for the lawn. Both have been great purchases for us. It would be hard to have 30 acres and not have either a tractor or a finely tuned animal grazing system that takes care of the pastures for you.One thing about farm equipment though. It is not an "investment". It is a tool that depreciates over time. Don't let any sales person tell you otherwise. If you get too excited and buy too many toys, then those toys start dictating your time b/c then you feel you have to "justify" the purchase. So it's tempting to make dumb decisions about how you run your farm based on your equipment and not based on what YOU want to do with the farm in the first place.

We truly love the farm life. It is rewarding and a healthy lifestyle. However, if you have any animals at all you have to make plans for someone else to tend to them or you will never go on vacation. That is a real dilemma for us because we want to improve our land with rotational grazing techniques involving cattle and chickens at the very least but we'd like to try sheep in the mix. So the challenge is trying to figure out how to do all of this and be able to leave it behind to travel now and then so that retirement truly feels like a treat and the farm doesn't feel like a burden.

We have sometimes said that we think if we had to do it all over again, that we would get less than 15 acres. Maybe even 5. You can do a lot and create quite a bit of diversity on just 2 or 3 acres.

I don't want to discourage you. We do love our farm and we get so excited when we find out new things to try. It is a labor of love. And we love the idea of becoming more self-sufficient and growing healthy food. It is just a lot of physical work and long days, depending on what you do, how you do it, and how much land you have to work with. I think that besides reading about it that it would be helpful for you to actually spend some time on a farm and get a feel for what it would actually be like in "real life". Neither my DH or I are golfing types and we've never been prolific travelers so it fits into our needs and desires to be productive, stay physically active, and live a lifestyle more connected to
nature on a daily basis.

Good luck in your research.
 
Ronstar said:
I would love to be a hobby farmer, but our 5 acres with no animals or crops is more than I can handle.
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I keep thinking if I had chickens, cows, etc..they'd outlive me. Even tho I'm not a vegetarian, I could not eat 'Henny Penny' or 'Buttercup'.
 
We live on 30 acres. My wife boards around eight horses in addition to taking care of her own horses. We also have a steer, chickens, an alpaca, a pig, lots of cats, three dogs, four ducks and breed fainting goats. I started a 25 tree orchard two years ago. We also have strawberries and a small vineyard. It is almost a mini zoo at our place because I just remembered I forgot about the snake, rabbits, parakeet, cockatiel, Guinea pig and I'm sure some other animals.

One of the smartest things I ever did was enter into a deal with my wife before we moved onto the farm she wanted. She agreed that I would be the gentleman, and she would be the farmer when it comes to feeding and taking care of the animals. I don't think I have fed any animals since we moved onto the farm 13 years ago. I will take care of much of the other work but I didn't want to have to feed the animals before I headed to the office.

I think we are breaking even from a financial perspective if we don't take into account the cost of the farm or farm equipment. We enjoy our lifestyle. We have a lot of gatherings and picnics at our farm. We get a kick of seeing the excitement that children have when they get around animals and pets.
 
+1 My wife also takes care of the critters - mostly goats, a couple of horses and a few chickens. She also takes care of this old goat (moi) which works out just fine for all concerned.
 
Hobby farmer

I have ten acres, 40 tree orchard, bees (neighbor puts them on my property), 2 acres of grapes (I make real bad wine, but it is fun), huge flower beds, nice small garden, raspberry patch and lots of other edible plants. I share a chicken flock with my parents down the road, we eat the eggs, but not the chickens.
IMHO the grapes are too much work for me, the fruit trees are fairly easy and are more fun. I sell the grapes to a local fruit stand and I drop off free apples/peaches/cherries, etc. at local businesses, and friend's houses. Any money does not even cover the sprays for the grapes or trees. It is just a hobby. My plants for family use only take up about 3 acres, the balance is rented by a local farmer. Even 3 acres is too much for two people to take care of if they are still working. It does keep you in shape though.
On top of it all, I like to heat with wood in the winter, so I split by hand. A good wood burner can turn into a real fun rewarding hobby. It also gives you great shoulders if your spouse is into that sort of thing.
Erik- not quite lazy as I want to be.
 
LazyErik said:
I have ten acres, 40 tree orchard, bees (neighbor puts them on my property), 2 acres of grapes (I make real bad wine, but it is fun), huge flower beds, nice small garden, raspberry patch and lots of other edible plants.
Click to expand...
Erik - welcome to the forum!
I envy your raspberry patch and seeing that you are not too far from me - what variety do you grow and how long did it take to bear fruit?
Several varieties I tried had been puny.
 
This is my dream. to retire and have a a little bit of land to farm. I am currently growing veggies on the 26th floor balcony. Would love to have a big enough plot of land to grow all crops.
 
We live on 72 acres; not yet retired. I've resisted adding "dependents" such as livestock because I want to travel the American West when I FIRE. So for now we just nurture deer, catfish, martins, toads, songbirds, worms, etc. I think once my travel jones is sated, we will stay on the farm and be pretty happy taking care of a bunch of animals.
 
Gazingus, I think you have the right idea! Now that we have our irrigation finally set up to go to our fruit and nut trees, maybe we can plan to homestead sequentially too - go do fun stuff first. I just know I'm ready to put my feet up for a while. I'm tired.
 
OP here. Thanks for all the replies. I loved reading through these. I am grateful for the recommendaations for smaller acreage. That seems reasonable and should provide more options for me closer to home. Also, while I like the idea of livestock, I think I will stick to a garden, orchard and any maintenance free wild critters that are naturally provided. I do hunt and fish but I am pretty sure that I would not like harvesting my own chickens, goats, or other animal that I would no doubt grows to like more as pets. I laughed with DW yesterday that I would end up with a goat retirement village rather than a farm! Also, while I do not travel much, I love the flexibility of being able to do so when the need or desire arises.

We decided to start small last month and grew bell peppers, jalapeño peppers, cucumbers, spaghetti squash, strawberries, and cherry tomatoes in the mulch amongst our ornamentals. We are by no means living off the land but have so very much enjoyed just checking on these things each day.

Thanks again. I am still interested in any other low maintenance hobby farming ideas that would work on 3 to 10 acres.
 
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Funny you bring up a goat retirement village. That's exactly where we have ended up Let's see, there is Phaedra now going on 12, there is Meia with a well earned retirement after 25 kids or so and so on. I call it our Geriatric Jamboree.
 
I am 5 years into my "hobby farm" experience. We have 2250 fruit trees (mostly peaches) and a large strawberry patch. I retired from my real job about 4 months ago. I was very excited and enthusiastic when I started out but I must admit it is starting to wear me down. This is my first year with any significant production from my peach crop. The orchard is 10 acres, we have about 35 acres total and someday we will probably inherit at least another 100 acres.
The best thing about fruit, is it is seasonal. Most of the work is done in 6 months. So you get a nice 6 month break. However, the 6 month season is hard work and the results are very unpredictable. A lot of hard work can go down the drain with just one day of bad weather. I am finding Mother Nature can be very brutal. We lost most of our strawberries to about 6 hard late frosts this year. We have a fairly decent peach crop on but it in serious jeopardy because of two weeks of unusually excessive rain.
My retirement plan was based on 3 sources of income, SS, 401k & savings, and some farm income. My back up plan is a part time job if the farm income goes south. So if I lose my peach crop there goes my 6 month break. Not counting my time I have invested about $100,000 in trees and equipment.
Yes, I would do it again, but I did think it would be easier and more enjoyable. Although, i wouldn't trade my worst day on the farm for my old job back. I do expect to feel alot better in two months when the season is over. There is a lot of risk and only moderate reward. If you don't have previous experience, think long and hard before attempting this, unless you have money to burn. I can't even imagine the work and dedication required if you have livestock. At least the trees can survive on their own for 6 months a year.
Make no mistake, it might start out as a hobby but it will only be successful if it becomes a "working" farm. And yes, I am also a member and enjoy tractor by net. Good luck and I sure hope it don't rain again today.
 
I have 10 acres. Built a house here about 8 years ago. I have about 100 chickens, a small garden, a few citrus trees. All fenced in pasture for a few horses, my dogs, and a couple of steers each year. I do make money with selling organic free range eggs. In fact I can't keep up with demand, but I really dont want to get more than what I have. Im able to grow some kind of vegetables 12 months out of the year. In fact one year I picked tomatoes on Christmas day.

I still work a part time job, but its very close by and flexible. I dont have any urges to travel; if I did, it would be very difficult. Its sort of a vacation here every day, always something fun to do. I spend a lot of time on the mower, but I really enjoy it. The farm is a lot of work, but I guess that depends on your definition of work or enjoyment. I really can't wait until I can retire fully and just stay home and "play".

All that being said, Im glad I didnt decide to buy more land at the time I bought this. I think I can handle this 10 acres for a long time, health willing. Any more would be a struggle. Across the street from me is a 200 acre cattle farm, the owner is over 80 years old, and he's out there every day moving cattle, or mowing on his big old tractor. My other neighbor is also in his 80's. He has 10 acres of hay, and it often outside mowing, or cutting up tree branches that have fallen. Thats one wonderful thing about living here, is that theres no wasted days. Every day you can get outside and do something.
 
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