Q: I'm starting up a food forest in Northeastern MN. Where in WI are you?
Mark: I'm located near Viroqua, WI
Q: How did you start making money?
Mark: with a rototiller and hand-tools. The first year's earnings bought a
tractor and then we've just kept it all snowballing since then...
Q: Do you do honor stands? Farmers markets? Sell to restaurants?
Mark: Our primary produce market is wholesale. We are a member of the Organic Valley Co-op and move all our produce crops through them. No restaurants, farmer's market or honor stands...
We're out in the middle of nowhere... I think 2 cars went by today. We're 4hrs away from the nearest REAL market (Chicago) so we pool our crop with others in order to fill trucks going to distributors... HIGH volume, lower price...
Q: Which foods do you sell most?
Mark: Hard to say and it varies year-to-year... Acorn squash, green peppers, asparagus, chestnuts, hazelnuts,
beef, pork,
chicken, hard
apple cyder, scionwood, nursery stock, cutflowers... We're kinda diverse, I guess....
Q: Which is the biggest money maker for you?
Mark: Here's where a journalist once picked apart one of my statements in order to make it sound bad... "There is not any one thing that I do that is economically
profitable all by itself. It is the system as a WHOLE that is"
I make little chunks of money over and over again. No BIG moneymaker...
Q: Have you created warm microclimates on your land?
Mark: here's where some of my philosophical perspective comes into play. I think that it is a total waste of time and
energy to try to keep stuff alive that wants to die. I also know of very few places in the world where something is NEEDED that doesn't grow there well without microclimate manipulation. So NO I don't go out of my way to create warm microclimates on my site. I DO use the actual differences in actual microclimate that exist on the farm in determining what I'll plant. I'll plant things that are more drought tolerant on the rockier, SW facing sites. More cold tolerant plants on the north slopes. Moisture tolerant plants in the wetter bottoms.
The only MAJOR microclimate manipulation I've done is with keyline
water management... There are literally MILES of swales,
berms and pocket ponds on the farm. You can read about it all in Restoration Agriculture:
http://www.forestag.com/book.html
Q: Do you grow warm climate foods?
Like what? Doesn't a high summer temp of 116ºF qualify as warm? Seriously... I really do prioritize what will work using STUN: Sheer Total Utter Neglect. If it wants special microclimate or special soil or requires protection crew it... I'm not interested.. NO wonder there are so few Permaculturists making money from their site.. they're working too hard...