Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Kate Spinner <kespinner@gmail.com>]

There's a 55-acre farm in Charlotte County, Florida that supports a  
family and feeds hundreds of people an amazingly diverse array of  
vegetables for nine months out of the year. They have six apprentices  
to help them, but based on what I see the farm bring to the farmer's  
market, I'm thinking it could easily support 50 people even if only a  
third of those people were actually there year-round. http://www.wordenfarm.com/

On Oct 11, 2009, at 11:32 PM, Tradingpost wrote:

> You're probably right, one acre through the seasons. But I have to  
> agree totally, for 50 acres to support 50 people, they definitely  
> would have to be on those acres. I think labor and transportation  
> factors come in there. I think they'd have to be doing the work and  
> not be someplace else. More thoughts on this?
>
> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>
>
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>
> On 10/11/2009 at 5:29 PM Dan Conine wrote:
>
> > > Always appropriate, isn't it. As for us here we grow for markets  
> > > on less
> > > than a quarter acre. It's not a living of course, and with a short
> > > frost-free season, poor soil to start with and very low rainfall  
> > > it's too
> > > much work for us.
> > My father acquired a 1300 acre farm for 100 bucks an acre in 1975.  
> > Being
> > mostly swamp and tundra, it barely supported 100 milking head and the
> > other supporting cast (pigs, calves, heifers, etc). I thought of it  
> > as a
> > massive farm.
> >
> > I now own 50 acres, and I have learned to think of it as a massive
> > place. It is a size which requires machinery, but even with  
> > machinery,
> > one person cannot be on the whole place in their mind. Regardless  
> > of the
> > labor, I have found that an acre is as much as one person can  
> > properly
> > keep in useful focus throughout the seasons. More than that and the
> > details suffer.
> >
> > I now understand how this farm could be 50 families' source of food  
> > and
> > income, but they would have to BE here in order for it to happen. We
> > have spent the last 100 years destroying that opportunity with  
> > petroleum
> > and money as motive.
> >
> > Dan C.
> >
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