Hello everyone,

My name is Gustavo, I'm from Brazil and am moving along with my wife (who is also portuguese) to Portugal in the following weeks.
We both have been graphic designers for a few years now but quickly became bored and disappointed with the "office space" lifestyle that awaited for us; not to mention the fact that 90% of our work was to develop advertising imagery and gibberish to sell absurdly wrong products and ideas.
Even though I have no farm background (born and raised on the city) I've always been really keen about being outside in the nature, see the sun once in a while and take a slower paced lifestyle. For that 2 reasons, we decided to go WOOFing in Italy (where we are right now, and been for 2 months now) to find out how working in the fields was like.

I was not surprised to realize that this feels a lot better. In the sense that I'm doing better for myself and also for the community. I really want to keep doing it and make a living out of it.
The thing is, we have no land, no family and no friends in Portugal yet.
We have some saved cash but not enough to buy land/housing, so we are trying to figure out a way of lifting some starting money with an indoors operation (since we are probably going to be in a rented apartment for the time being) or a rented small patch of land, so we can pay our bills and buy our own land in a foreseeable future and live off it.

I have searched a lot in the Internet about high value crops for small spaces and stumbled upon microgreens at some point.
They seem to be reasonably good to raise in small places, yield quickly, are sought for by the general public for their vitamin value and have a lot of value to fine restaurant chefs.
And although it may not seem like "real farming", comparing to what I've done while WOOFing, it seems like a good starting point for someone without land.

Another plan is to try to find some small land (like 1 or 2 acres) and plant something that has a high value to land use ratio (like garlic or some kind of flowers, like lavender, or herbs like basil).

Do you guys think there's any chance for this to be viable? Is the microgreen thing even legal to do inside an apartment? Are garlic/herbs that profitable as they say?
Does anyone here has some knowledge to share for me? Maybe someone has a patch of unused land to lend/rent?
Sorry if I sound stupid at some point, but it's all new to me! hehe

Thank you for your attention, I'm sorry for the text wall!

Hiya

I'm living just next door in Spain, welcome to the new lifestyle

I think that the most important thing to do before you decide what to grow to sell, is to research the market and see what sells in your area. For example we live in a small rural community and people are very unwilling to try anything new. The beautiful sprouting broccoli a neighbour grew was left unsold (except to me!)

Good luck with your new life.

Lucy

Off grid land on offer. Rent FREE. Ideally for food forest/permaculture project. The land is situated in Malpica do Tejo 20 minutes drive to Castelo Branco (Central Portugal). It is a 10 minutes drive to the village of Malpica do Tejo near the Natural Park. It has 1.4 hectares, a well and a stream. Only a few fruit trees but you can plant loads more. It has a ruin made of cob that can be rebuilt and also space for other small shelters. It is a bit isolated so its better suited to a group of people rather than one family.