Sondee Grande

We had some small purple potatoes from our garden that I wanted to save to plant this year, but they were starting to sprout & shrivel, so we went to Habitat for Humanity & got a black storage tub that people donated that held their Christmas decorations for 2 bucks. Then we bought an opaque plastic one that the black one could sit in. We drilled some holes in the black one for drainage & set it inside the more clear plastic tub to see when water sat in the bottom of it. We started to fill the black tub with our aged compost & planted the purple potatoes in it. So far, so good. The sprouted ones were leggy but growing. They are under a grow light. The leaves are small compared to outdoor summer garden growing. The purple potatoes that were not sprouting yet have stronger & thicker stems & are just starting to come up. I think I will have to be careful not to overwater, altho the black tub is draining. My hope is that I have tubers to plant in our outdoor garden this year instead of letting the sprouted, shrivelled potatoes go bad. I kept filling compost on top of the stems so far to hold them upright.

There are some good ideas here. I especially like Jay's thoughtful reply of his experience. We considered buying land in an area that we liked & then realized after permits for septic, and paying for & installing electricity, with whatever method we chose, by applying & waiting on permits to build & hire licensed electricians & plumbers to meet codes, not even to mention having to pay rent for years to complete all this, we were way ahead timewise & financially to buy what we could afford that was move-in ready for us. If we stayed where we were living, we also had the extra time & expense of travel back n forth which just didn't pay off. I hope your idea works out for you, but we just didn't want to take the time to wait & extra expense.

Greetings from a sweet little acre of organic gardens near Columbus/ Madison WI. We live in an amazeballs place, that has it all for us. Food gardens, incl perennial asparagus, garlic, strawberries, unbelievable to most blueberry bed ( 9 gallons of berries this year ) elderberries, & herbs galore. We have many perennial gardens that are landscaped with natural materials.  Our lot has beautiful mature trees & all the wildlife Wisconsin has to offer. We have eagles flying over every day. We live in a nature corridor between 2 wetlands, so water life abounds. There is a wildflower field across the road. We are older now than when we developed our land & wonder if there are interested permies that might want to take it from here. We want to be creative. Rent to buy? Short-term roomies (before we leave) ? We are 30 minutes from Madison.

Sondee Grande wrote:So this exchange has piqued my interest & possibly of some organic farmers that I know. I don't know the details of how this really works but we are in south central Wisconsin & would like to explore this area of passing on our one-acre rustic, rural property in a rent-to-buy, work exchange, flexible roommate scenario. It would be a long-term exchange, at least a year for us, & for our farmer friends with a fully operating organic dairy farm, a possible 5-year commitment would allow a fuller evaluation of an agreed-upon goal. We are flexible & would like to hear creative ideas & different prospects.
Some projects could easily be done i.e. Gardening, Natural Building, Forage & Natural Medicine, Tool Care, Woodworking, Food Prep, Homesteading & repairing a veggie garden fence, & spring clean up as just a few examples. Bring your creativity & see what you have to offer.

So this exchange has piqued my interest & possibly of some organic farmers that I know. I don't know the details of how this really works but we are in south central Wisconsin & would like to explore this area of passing on our one-acre rustic, rural property in a rent-to-buy, work exchange, flexible roommate scenario. It would be a long-term exchange, at least a year for us, & for our farmer friends  with a fully operating organic dairy farm, a possible 5-year commitment would allow a fuller evaluation of an agreed-upon goal. We are flexible & would like to hear creative ideas & different prospects.