Ask Lemmy

I suppose you could call my place a small farm.

We got 4 runner ducks that lay eggs like crazy and keep the bugs down for the garden.

Last year raised 10 turkeys for meat.

For fruit: Strawberries

Blueberries

Blackberries

Thimble berries

Salmonberries

Elderberries

Apples

Cherries

The garden:

Potatoes

Leeks

Peas

Green beans

Collard greens

Mustard greens

Kale

Brussels sprouts

Broccoli

Zucchini

Tomatoes

Sweet potatoes

Radishes

Beets

Didn't have success with everything and most of those are still going.

I also harvest the stinging nettle that grows all over the property. There's also crayfish in the creek on the property.

Grow: fat
Keep: to myself

• pine nuts
• ostriches
• bees

Goats (milk, cheese, lawn care), alpacas (wool), and maybe a few bee hives for honey to make mead. But I don’t know how to properly care for any of these creatures so it’s best I leave it to those who do.

The last few days I've been craving cloudberry and fantasising about growing them at home, so...

Just fruits and veggies. Don’t want to take care of animals. We did that when I was a kid and it’s a lot more work than plants. The things that want to get to those animals…. Nah man.

cannabis

Probably what I'm gardening now, but more? Tomatoes. Strawberries. Pickling cucumbers. Jalapeños.

In a fantasy sense, I'd love to have sheep and donkeys, grow herbs and mushrooms, and make cheese (with vegan rennet).

Potatoes. Lot of potatoes. Good yield, not a lot of work, long conservation, lot of way to consume, vodka friendly. And you can sell excess easily I think. And also parsley and garlic. Good to add with potatoes.

Dank, beans and chilis.

I do have a small farm (though it's still not anywhere near being a primary source of income).

• jalapenos
• anything hotter that will grow up here (I need to get a heated mat for starting seeds)
• sweet peppers
• tomatoes
• cucumbers
• kohlrabi
• various beans
• carrots
• beets
• potatoes
• various varieties of cabbage
• hakusai (Chinese cabbage in English, IIRC)
• bok choi
• eggplant
• broccoli (regular and stick)
• cauliflower
• kabocha
• other squashes
• various herbs
• radishes
• blueberries
• biwa (loquat)
• ume (plum)
• kaki (persimmon variety)
• onions (both Japanese and yellow, white, and red)
• okra

and I'm sure more I'm forgetting. I don't use chemical pesticides so a lot of the brassicas don't end up doing well. It's also why I gave up on corn because it will not do well without pesticides here. I live in northern Japan but coastal so I have more moderate weather. Still, peppers don't like to do anything naturally until July or August and don't do well in our rainy season (which we are still in this year, unfortunately)

irish wolfhounds

Goats, pigs, your mom. But I’d need a few hectares for the latter. 😁

Strawberries. They are the best taste to effort and cost of what little grows here in the north.

Potato is an option but they are cheap at the store.

Peppers and chili is an option but they require a greenhouse to stand a chance.

I'd not bother keeping animals unless I intended to make it a bigger part of my income. Can't just fuck off for a week and do something else. Chickens would be the first contender if I did though

Apples and Bees. Although where I live there’s plenty of orchards and they produce some stunning Honey. So it would be more of a personal thing where I’d produce apple cider and meads for the long winter nights.

I would just extend what I am trying to do with my yard to make a food forest. So some more perennial fruiting and nut trees and perennial berry bushes. Really try the permaculture thing with lots of little harvest instead of a few big ones.

I have been loving growing herbs both culinary and medicinal. My yard gets enough to craft remedies for my should but it would be a great way to make some cash if you get some perennial herbs set up for regular harvesting and drying. I might try to sell calendula but I would really need to get good at starting from seed. But there's money in that.

Corn, squash, beans. Maybe some hanging tomatoes.

Chili. Definitely chili, a few type of it. It take small land to produce a lot of it, and chili also sell in high price per kg.

Also okra, bittergourd, pineapple

I'd love to be able to grow what I eat every day:

Onions
Carrots
Broccoli
Spinach
Brussel Sprouts
Tomatoes

Chickens

I have no idea how to do this, and I don't think I'd be very good at it.

I would add sugarcane to the list. Its juice is pretty good and it's a "plant and forget it" type of crop. Just don't overdo it. The seedlings from one single sugarcane are more than enough.

I'm lucky enough to have a job that pays well where I work from home and don't have to stick to a schedule so my little farm doesn't have to provide any real monetary value and just gives us decent food stability and good will with neighbors.

We just moved here last year so were still getting set up, but so far we have a dozen pear and apple trees, tomatoes, too much zucchini, an assortment of peppers, eggplant, bush beans, 1/8th of an acre of potatoes and a 1/4 acre of pumpkin and squash. Once the squash bed is done I'll fill it with onions and garlic to overwinter. We also have a nice little flock of quail for eggs.

If we had more room I would love to expand everything, plant a lot more fruit bushes and trees, get some ducks and chickens, maybe a couple goats and a donkey

It depends of you want money or satisfaction?

If it's money then the answer is going to be boring: find a cash crop that grows and sells well in your area and grow that. Here it's garlic.

If it's satisfaction then IDK honestly. Probably a bike track for my kids. I'd grow veggies but avoid livestock.

Fennel, it grows well for me and is a premium crop, and maybe Stokes Purple sweet potatoes and okra.

But really, fennel because it is reasonably well compensated and the only thing I grow the bugs ignore. Hong Tsoi is vigorous for me but doesn't cost as much.

If you have room for animals, figure out what people will pay for and raise those. I have no idea on that.

A small plot for my own use, maybe in a greenhouse, and the rest solar panels connected to the grid.

I'd run a small moisture farm

Hey nice! This is kind of a dream for me. For my small plot I've gotten a good hang of the basics, and very good at composting. My main goal is a sustainable garden whose fertilizer comes from within. Phosphorus is the biggest challenge to that, imo.

That said, Jerusalem artichokes are a big winner, alongside soy beans, kale (hardy as hell), and beets (also hardy), followed next by carrots, onions, tomatoes (increasingly picky in my experience). Obviously there are a ton of others including herbs, but I love growing these.

Well assuming no legal problems, if just want a small plot of weed.

Enough to have several plants of 3 or 4 different strains, with enough quantity to be high anytime I want, and enough to keep my siblings that partake stocked for free.

And enough to have the amounts needed when baking with it.

I don't wanna become a dealer or have a massive stockpile, but I don't wanna have to ration til the next crop is ready. Wouldn't need but like a quarter ounce of each kind I have at the absolute most. One of them only uses occasional edibles, and the two of us that use flower use dry vapes, do we don't need much at a time.

And even then we use ABV to make it, so really even a quarter ounce would probably work. I do limit my usage when I have some, but even if I didn't I would be zooted 24/7.

I figure even if I got some of my tolerance back, I couldn't use more than a gram a day (I believe the capsules my vape uses are 0.1g per bowl, and I would probably max out at 4 bowls.

That's what... 0.4g a day, 2.8g/week, 11.2g/month.

I have no idea how long a plant takes to grow to maturity, or how long they keep producing after a harvest (do you just chop the whole plant down? It is it like picking oranges off a tree that will grow back? I've never actually looked into it at all tbh),

Anyway, with like 4 or so different strains at a time, I would need to make more friends to give all that away.

For context, I have animals, bee hives, a large vegetable/herb/fruit garden and a medium plot that I rotate crops in every season.