Jay Williams

I have spent the last month reading through the entire thread, taken notes, and made a book list. Thanks everyone.

My two coins - at first the OP’s question seemed brash, but now I appreciate his directness.

As others have pointed out, farm income streams are low margin and need to appropriately scale (niche on one side or high volume on the other, tougher in the middle) to find the profit. Diego’s question was quite focused on selling products grown (or raised) on farm land. Fine place to start a business plan. I sure am glad there are people out there who are passionate about growing stuff.

Boosting a farm business plan with permaculture (and other) design strategies can help to make it resilient and the scale issues become less persistent.

A few notes, some have been said before:
Diversify the products that will leave the farm to customers: Animals and meat, eggs, dairy, fruit, vegetables, mushrooms, honey, firewood, seeds, starts, cuttings, canes, etc.

With a little extra processing: jams, jellies, cheese, pickles, wood chips, mulch, compost, wool, felt, etc.

With customers onsite: tours, day camps, school groups, you-pick setups, classes, etc.

Farm knowledge as a yield: Shed building, tractor repair, tool maintenance, land surveying, sheering services, mobile slaughter, horse shoeing, livestock guardian dog training, solar power installations, pump repair, etc.

These are just a few ideas that tie directly to farm and land use, there are many many more.

The keys to getting the right group of yields set up, and minimizing time and cash inputs, and finding a market for one’s products is hard work and it takes patience and adaptability. What worked 5 years ago may not work today. With a highly diverse system the farmer can hopefully guard against market fluctuations by maintaining the elements that work, and updating only the underperforming parts of the system. All of this assumes one has land, and time to devote to setting up or learning to optimize the farm systems. If one does not, that is another hurdle to jump. Setting up farm systems, marketing, and building community (It cannot be stressed enough that good relationships with the community can make or break any business starting out) are almost three separate skills.

Farmers can earn a profit. Permaculture designs can be used by farmers that earn a profit. I appreciate the spirit of this thread because it highlights examples for people who want to earn a living, and use permaculture, and do not want to write or teach design courses for a living.  

John,
I had not heard that about the radish/nitrate connection. Thank you. I will look into it. I can't speak to the radish subject but I have plenty to say about the process of food fermentation.

It is my understanding that the salt used in fermentation has multiple purposes. It acts as a preservative in the initial stages and, due to Osmosis, allows water rich vegetables and fruit to create their own brine. Your plan to keep the salt low may be the source of your drier than expected conditions. Kim chi is not traditionally made using the same methods as sauerkraut. The european cabbage fermentations conduct their process in an anaerobic environment, like a pickle brine. I suspect the kim chi process of soaking in salt (or using a salt rub) and rinsing works to destroy pathogens and break down some of the cell membranes in the vegetables. The spicy pepper mixture is a second tier preservative to guard against invasives. Are you fermenting in a more Korean style or european?

I have reused brine to speed the process up by inoculation from time to time. My personal preference is to not transfer brine more than once. I like a fresher flavour and appearance. The fermentation process needs Osmosis to draw the liquid out the vegetables. I have found that soaking vegetables in a cultured brine without the first part doesn't yield the same results.

There is no harm in using less salt. If you are using cabbage in a brine ferment but there isn't enough liquid it is easy to add more salted water at any point. The level of preservation is proportional to salinity of the mixture. A low salt brine ferment may be more susceptible to negative bacteria and molds. Environmental conditions also effect this so it is difficult to say how little is too little. Keep an eye on it. Putting your vessel someplace cold will help preserve the contents at the expense of speed. Other materials like hot peppers (as mentioned above) or garlic will also help increase the preservative nature. Salt also aids in breaking down the vegetables. Crush them more beforehand if you would like a low salt brine.

Sea vegetables are good sources of non processed salt and minerals. Put them in a jar and add enough water to cover them (more water if dry seaweed). Leave it over night, or a day in the fridge. Dry seaweed will double or triple in size so keep an eye on it. Use this salt/mineral rich water on veggies instead of dry salt. This process is very trial and error and to taste. Chop up the sea veggies and add them to your fermentations for a good textural contrast and flavour in the final product.

Thanks for reading my long winded response. I am new to the forums and not yet acclimated to the forum culture.

As a salt replacement option I have used sea vegetables (kelp, wakame, dulse, nori, etc..) to create an infused salt/mineral brine that when added to fermentation batches creates a unique flavour and is highly nutritious. I will happily share my process if anyone is interested.

Water content in vegetables will fluctuate based on a few different factors. If you kneed/crush the veggies with your hands in a large bowl prior to placing them in the fermentation vessel it helps to get the process started. Save the liquid and add it into your jar/pot/etc with the veggies. Another option is to increase the weight used to keep your food submerged. When mixing vegetables it can be necessary to add a salt brine mixture to compensate for the added volume.