Generate income from your homestead

Additional income from your homestead

Homesteading is about being self-sufficient, right? Creating income

from your homestead is how we get one step closer to financial freedom

and self sufficiency.  Most homesteaders use their land to produce for

themselves and their families and that’s great. But let's take it that a step further

and think about the things you have around your homestead/small farm and

figure out ways to generate additional income. If you are a homesteader you

probably have developed a product, or skills specific to your area and climate.

Someone is probably willing to pay for that knowledge. Here are a couple ideas for
you to start brainstorming.

Market garden

Manure/compost

Micro green business

Eggs

Small scale woodworking

Market garden

Do you have a garden? I can’t imagine a homestead without one. It doesn’t

take much to start a garden. You can grow niche products in very small

areas, like leaf lettuce, salad turnips, bok choy, herbs, beets, carrots, dwarf

tomatoes, microgreens, Asian greens, mustard greens, cabbages.. the list

goes on and on. These are vegetable that don’t require large plots of land to

grow. You can grow a lot of food in a very small space. Locally owned

restaurants, friends and neighbors are looking for locally sourced food. It last

longer and usually taste better.

Manure/compost

If you have chickens or other livestock, this is should be easy. Each day when we
take care of our chickens we take a paint scraper and scrape up the manure in
the chicken coop. We put it in a 5 gallon bucket and usually within a week we fill two

5 gallon buckets full. Think about that.. That’s 520 gallons of chicken manure alone
in a year that goes back into building soil for a garden. Manure mixed with grass

clippings, leaves, table scraps, coffee grounds and whatever else you can

compost makes for some very fertile soil. Sure, it takes a little time to compost down

but the wait is certainly worth it. Do you have any neighbors that garden? If

you're in an urban setting I’m sure your neighbors would love a couple

buckets of this locally sourced compost for their garden beds. Charge them for

each 5 gallon bucket.  

Micro greens

Pea sprouts

Most folks run when they see micro greens. They probably think, that’s sounds

complicated. Trust me, it’s not. If you can grow a garden then micros are a walk

in the park. Micro greens are nothing more than sprouting seeds in a tray. The

two most popular we grow are sunflower shoots and pea shoots. Restaurants

love them and you don’t need a lot of space to grow a good amount of these.

This past year we actually built some shelves on casters in our basement and

with some supplemental lighting we were in business. We were able to keep

about 50 trays going all winter for our restaurants. We generated a couple hundred
bucks per week growing these and selling to restaurants.

Eggs

If you have chickens this is the most obvious source of income from them. I will

caution you though, make sure you understand your investment in chickens and

what you are charging per dozen for eggs. Chickens are more expensive than

people think, especially if you are buying organic non GMO feed. I see folks

selling their farm fresh eggs at $2 and $3 per dozen and I question how

sustainable that is long term. We use them as a value added product with our

market garden. Chickens do a lot for our place, they eat our table scraps, bugs,

give us manure, and obviously eggs. Understand your finances when it comes

to chickens, or any venture on your homestead for that matter.

Small Scale Woodworking

We live in Middle Tennessee, so we are very blessed with eastern red cedar.

Luckily for us, their is a mill close to us where we can buy rough cut lumber.

Megan and I make tables, benches, desks and bookshelves with cedar. I would

say to start small, all you need are some basic power tools to knock together some

birdhouses. Most folks probably think… I have no carpentry skills, we didn't either.

And the first one you build will not look like what you had envisioned or sketched

out on paper. Each one you build after that will get better and better. Find some

simple birdhouse plans on the internet and give it a try. Let your neighbors know

and ask them if they’d be interested in adding some birdhouses in their yard.

Small desk we built using
eastern red cedar

Workshops

Are you skilled at something on your place? Do you have specific knowledge

about something unique on your place? If you do, then I’ll bet there's someone

out there willing to pay for that knowledge. Especially, if you can give them a hands

on demonstration in a forum where they can ask questions directly to you.

Look around your homestead and figure out ways to generate a little income.

As homesteaders, we want to be more self sufficient. I’m always looking for new

ways to generate additional income from our land without destroying it.

Have questions? Email me: jason@smithfamilyfarmtn.com

Jason Smith
Homesteader and Market Gardener
Email: jason@smithfamilyfarmtn.com
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH_6SzCMTTkjND
S8qU2TzEg
Website: www.smithfamilyfarmtn.com

Develop a gardening system for success

Its all happening now, the warm season is here and your mind is racing with things to plant or try. Let me offer you a couple suggestions... plan your garden and work the plan. If you have the space, you should make a couple different garden spots. If you visit our farm you'll see garden spots in what seems to be random places. But believe me, it's not random at all. Each spot we chose was very well thought out and carefully planned.
You might try to categorize your garden. Have a salad garden, a summer garden and a eat and store garden.

Salad garden:
The salad garden will include early season crops like lettuces, radishes, beets, carrots, scallions Asian greens and salad turnips. These all have shorter days to maturity and grow well in early spring. You don't need a lot space to grow a large amount of food either. A 6 ft by 8 ft area can grow a lot of food. I have designed a plan for you to reference below.

Salad mix

Summer garden:
Here is the one that gets everyone excited. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, melons, zucchini, summer squash, and the list goes on. A nice summer garden can keep your family in fresh produce for weeks. You can also can or freeze if you have too much. I consider it a bonus, it is literally like put putting money in my pocket. Last year we had an abundance of cherry tomatoes so we washed and froze them. Megan used them through the winter to make pasta dishes. Spaghetti squash with a marinara and cherry tomatoes is so, so good in winter. Too me, that's comfort food. A 30 ft by 40 ft area can yield a lot of produce for a family, if planned correctly.

Store and Eat garden:
This is where we plant potatoes, corn and all the winter squash you can imagine. We plant corn, then butternut and spaghetti squash next to the corn. The winter squash will vine out and cover the ground around the corn and choke out the weeds. Butternut and spaghetti squash will keep for 8 months, if it is stored properly. You can freeze corn on the cob, or you can cut it off and place in freezer bags and eat throughout winter.

Careful planning can make a huge difference, not only in the quality of your garden but also the quantity. Megan and I have been growing vegetables year around on our farm in Middle Tennessee for many years. We want to share our knowledge, and hope people can draw some inspiration on what we have learned over the years. We currently operate an on farm market with seasonal produce. Please share this with anyone you think might benefit from it. 





Jason Smith
Homesteader and Market Gardener
Email: jason@smithfamilyfarmtn.com
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH_6SzCMTTkjND
S8qU2TzEg
Website: www.smithfamilyfarmtn.com