3 Ways To Make Production Less Labor Intensive On Your New Organic Farm
Starting a new organic farm for profit? Here's how to make the production process a little less labor-intensive overall:
Create Extra-Wide Pathways
When designing the gardening plots throughout your farm, it's important to make the pathways a priority because they will be used on a consistent basis to tend to the plants and harvest food. While a walkway to travel with a wheelbarrow or a bucket on may suit your needs now while your farm is in its infancy, what kind of labor load will you be looking at in the years to come? Once your plants and trees start to produce, you'll have a lot of food to harvest.
With a golf cart or four-wheeler by your side, you can get the job done in a matter of hours or days compared to the weeks it may take you walking wheelbarrows back and forth between garden plots and food storage areas. So, make sure that you design and create extra-wide pathways that will accommodate small vehicles in the future in case you need them. At the very least, they'll make access to all your garden areas easy and safe for everyone involved.
Utilize Dry, Pelleted Fertilizer
An effective way to make labor less intensive on your new farm is to invest in dry, pelleted, organic fertilizer instead of using liquid options. Dry fertilizer lasts longer because it's dispersed more slowly into the soil, and therefore is absorbed more slowly by plant life. This means that you won't have to fertilize your farm nearly as much as you would if liquid fertilizer were used. The time you save on fertilization efforts can be spent on disease management, employee training, and marketing your goods.
And with dry, pelleted fertilizer in play, you can more easily plan how each garden plot will be managed throughout the year. Instead of scheduling fertilizing tasks for each plot every month, it's possible to schedule them in groups every few months without sacrificing plant production levels. To learn more about your options for organic fertilizer for farming, contact a company like Nature Safe.
Host Pick-it-Yourself Events
Once your farms start producing enough organic produce to profit from, host pick-it-yourself events a few times a year to take some of the stress off your harvesting needs. If the public is allowed to purchase produce by the pound that they themselves pick off your farm, you can make money by having your plots thinned out by customers a little before you have to harvest for commercial or bulk sales. You'll save labor time and money on harvesting while offering families an opportunity to spend quality time together, and your community will have access to fresh, healthy produce they can be proud of harvesting themselves.
Share