Dustin Russell

https://www.gofundme.com/organic-micro-farm-startup

My goal is to start a micro farm to provide healthy, organic produce to my community using sustainable practices, and help meet my family's goals.

I am a 5th grade teacher. My wife is an army veteran who served in Afghanistan 5 years ago and is currently a homemaker. We currently have a 1 year old son, but we dream of having as many children as God will bless us with. Starting a micro farm will help us achieve that goal.

Our home has less than 600 square feet of living space, so we desire to add on to have room for more children. We are working on paying off our debt and want to avoid taking on more debt, (we are currently following Dave Ramsey's debt snowball plan). I already tutor part time and preach part time at a small congregation in southern Indiana. We live well within our means. We don't want a McMansion, just two bedrooms (1 for boys and 1 for girls). The income from the micro farm will go towards this goal.

We are blessed with a couple of acres to farm using intensive, sustainable practice, a la Elliot Coleman, Curtis Stone, and Jean Martin-Fortier. I have 5 years experience growing a large family garden, plus a year of helping with a farmer at the market, and I will use what I've learned to scale up to a market garden/mini farm.

The $5000 I hope to raise will go to seed and equipment such as a walk in cooler, a washing station, greens drying screen, harvest bins, landscape fabric, farmer's market supplies (tables, canopy, display) and a few other tools.

Your support will not only help my family, you will also be helping to provide clean, organic food to dozens or even hundreds of other families in my community. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thanks everyone for the input! We have clay soil, but have seen the wonders that wood chip mulch can do. This year I am experimenting with using an earth way seeder with wood chips. I just have to use a how to rake a row in the wood chips down to the soil. From there, the earth way seeder seems to work fine.

My biggest concern is with the need for extra compost and fertilizer. Could cover crops and a chicken tractor provide enough organic matter and nutrients by themselves? Or would I still need to bring in other inputs with this system?

I am planning a market garden for the future and want to minimize my inputs from off the farm. I have an idea I want to share that I'm hoping for feedback on, preferably from folks with experience.

My farm will be laid out in 50' x 100' plots, each with 24 beds, (30" x 50' with 20" pathways). I plan to use wood chip mulch to implement the back to eden method. My wife and I have used wood chip mulch for our home garden for 5 years with great success.

Here's where the crazy part comes in.
-Every few years (2 or 3 ?) I want to give a plot a year to rest.
-Instead of just sitting completely fallow, my idea is to plant a combination cover crop (peas? Rye? Alfalfa???) as early as possible in the spring, (I'm in zone 6 so maybe April)
-When cover crops reach maturity, I plan to run meat chickens over the cover crop in chicken tractors, both to shred the cover crop and to add manure.
-when chickens have reached maturity (around august perhaps), I would then implement occultation - cover the entire bed with a black tarp to completely kill off the cover crop and any other weeds. I'd let the tarp cover the plot from the end of the summer until next spring. (I would also have the plot covered with a tarp preceding the cover crop planting).
-I would also reapply a layer of wood chips on this plot at some point, either in the fall before or the fall after cover crops.

My hope is the cover crop and chicken manure combo would replace the need for any additional compost and fertilizer. Any thoughts? Suggestions? Am I missing something in this scenario?

Thanks!
Dustin