Steve Johnston wrote:Hi Permies
I'm looking for a unique situation.
Looking for a place suitable for a small Permaculture farm with two separate structures that are suitable for housing. Rustic is perfectly fine. I'm open-minded to what they may be like: Small cabin, shack, tiny home, barn what ever it may be.
Housing is for father son, and the other for single person.
We would be using all alternative, and permaculture methods on the farm.
Need space for green house, and mushroom shed, as well as land for crops.
We would like a partial crop share arrangement where in we pay a small monthly rent, along with a percentage of any profits made from produce, and products. There are a few things besides produce that the farm produces that can be sold.
Open to different situations that match that general idea.
If that sounds interesting contact me.
To be clear, I am not looking for a place to grow cannabis.
Ideally looking for western slope of coastal range.
I'm currently in Northern California in Siskiyou county.
I am just adding some info about the plan here. Copied and pasted from an email to ad some detail about what I have planned:
What I have in mind is a small
permaculture farm that functions according to the principles of natural farming. As you may or may not know, natural farming is a system of agriculture that follows specific guidelines, namely to emulate nature, mimic nature, and exclude things that aren't the way of nature. Not all organic farming is permaculture and not all permaculture is specificly natural farming. That is not to say that those things are unnatural, but they don't necessarily follow the general way of nature. Example being that tilling crop sites can be a method utilized by organic farmers, and permaculturist, but natural farming is a no-till method because the way of nature is also a no-till method.
There are natural farming methods of animal husbandry that differ from conventional methods mainly in that there is an emphasis on respecting their rights, but also what and how they are fed, and in how, in this case, the
chicken coup is built.
Making profits selling produce on a small farm is definitely possible, but the best way to
profit off a small farm is by making and selling products.
Permaculture as you probably know is a cyclic system that looks at the utility of the wastes and byproduct, and makes use of them as the necessary fuels,
feed, and fertilizers required to run a farm.
So with all that said what I envision is a farm and buisness based on the concept of the permaculture system that sells produce, products, and even by products.
So I forsee a small, but significant amount of crops for use as produce, and about an equal amount of crops intended for animal feed.
A
chicken house built according to Korean Natural Farming specs: 2 ft bedding/deep litter system. The bedding is made by laying saturated rotting logs and saplings burried in saw dust, wood chips and
straw. The bedding is inoculated with a ln array of microbes collected in a near by forest and cultured on bulk substrates for use in various ways on the farm.
The bedding becomes a living biological community, actively decomposing similarly to a forest floor. Manure is left in the chicken house to feed the bedding which rapidly decomposes in a clean and healthy way that feeds it's nutrients into the bedding where they become food for the chicken in various ways. The bedding becomes a habitat for certain arthopods like fungus gnats which lay their eggs which become larvae fe ding on the mycelium in the bedding.
Chickens scratch and discover bugs and larvae as well as mycelium to eat
Chickens are raised on a natural diet made from good nutrient rich sources of things that are more natural to them than what they are conventionally fed.
The same microbes used in the chicken house are used to inoculate the crop sites with forest microbes. There are other Korean Natural Farming inputs used in rasing the chickens, and on the crops. Some are biological inputs , bacterias in a solution containing metabolites and enzymes produced by those bacteria, and some are biological inputs made with plants (generally) l that contain phytochemicals, growth hormones and other plant growth promoting compounds as well as microbial metabolites and enzymes.
Just about everything used to grow the crops are either remade from things readily available on the farm or wild crafted from natural settings in the vicinity of the farm.
The chicken food is produced in a way that yeilds valuable byproducts that can be used as products, and can be sold as a product itself, and in fact the specialized chicken food that has nothing comparable on the market that I'm aware of will likely be the most valuable product produced by the farm.
In the process of producing the finest eggs imaginable there are three products produced, plus produce and mushrooms. Some of this is for farmers market, some for stores, online and various contracts.
I am not a typical farmer by any definition, nor a typical buisness entrepreneur or anything like that, and I don't have a ton of money. I someone who has a broad spectrum of
experience in horticulture and agriculture to various degrees and who has a vision. Ive successfully used all the methods I will be employing. I'm not someone who has been farming for years, but I'm not someone with no experience who has no idea what they are getting into either
That's what I have in mind. What I'm looking for is a space to do this with water, and two separate structures that can be used as living spaces.
