The Tiny But Mighty Farm: Cultivating High Yields, Community, and Self-Sufficiency from a Home Farm – Start growing food today – Meet the best … yourself, your family, and your neighbors

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In The Tiny But Mighty Farm, author Jill Ragan of YouTube’s Whispering Willow Farm teaches you how to turn a typical suburban backyard into a productive mini farm.

Backyard mini farming is about regular people who live in regular houses turning all or part of their property into a productive, high-yielding mini farm. Unlike gardening, mini farming takes a very deliberate approach, with the main goal being to grow as much food as you can with as little land and as few resources as possible. Everything is done with planning and purpose, rather than as a hobby. Whether your property is one-tenth of an acre, one full acre, or somewhere in between, there are so many opportunities to grow vegetables, fruits, and herbs in creative and high-yielding ways.

If concerns about food security and the rising cost of food have you feeling uneasy, or if you just want to play a bigger role in feeding your family and your community, starting a backyard mini farm is the answer. With Jill as your friendly and encouraging guide, you’ll learn how to grow food for your family and, if you want, sell part of your harvest for a profit. From discovering what kind of mini farmer you want to be to selecting the best high-yielding varieties and planning out and preparing your growing spaces, it’s all covered in these pages.
 
With Jill’s help you’ll learn:
  The best tools for running a successful mini farm (hint: a tractor isn’t on the list!) Advice on whether to grow in the ground, in raised beds, or indoors How soil health impacts the longevity of your backyard farm Whether heirlooms or hybrids bring bigger yields Ways to use structures like high tunnels and greenhouses to improve production The many satisfactions of growing food for others and how much money you can expect to earn
In the process of cultivating food, you’ll also be cultivating yourself, your family, and your community in the most beautiful and inspiring ways. With help from The Tiny But Mighty Farm, food self-sufficiency and seasonal, organic eating is an achievable goal. Big yields from a typical backyard is what a well-designed, functional mini farm is all about.

From the Publisher

Introduction

I have spent the last 10 years of my adult life dedicating my time, energy, and resources to learning this skill and growing my craft as a farmer. My husband and I now have a small farm where we grow food for our family and our community and teach others how to plan and steward their own farms and dreams.

This is more than just a career for me; it’s my purpose. We’ve all been called to something. For me, it’s the garden. It’s raising a generation that’s aware of their food and how it’s grown and cared for. It’s to encourage every single person who turns the pages of this book to do great things. You, yes you, can grow abundant food and learn and grow as a gardener. I’ve never been so proud of the work I’ve done before, and I hope throughout this book you will feel electrified with purpose, desire, and the grit to dig your heels in and feel this same emotion about your farm and garden, too.

Considerations for Your Tiny Farm

Value and Vision

Throughout this book, you will hear me encourage you to write out your dreams and to set realistic expectations for yourself and your farm. The crops will come and go, and the style of your gardening will likely change over time, but one thing that remains will be your values. These values will be the foundation and the pillars that help you grow.

Space and Budget

We live in a culture where the motto “go big or go home” is ingrained in our minds. I want to challenge you to think differently. Think about maxing out your tiny space with efficient systems. You cannot have a farm without the land, and it will likely be your most considerable expense. This idea is why the mind set of “starting big” should be reevaluated. If we all wait to farm until we have the means to purchase a large amount of land, we may never start.

Creating a Plan

When I plan for my garden or farm, I usually write down and dream with a “sky’s the limit” mentality. Granted, this does not mean I will have the resources to follow through with everything on my list, but it gives me direction on what I would like to see for the future of my farm. If I intend to build a large workshop on the farm as part of the larger vision, I will make sure not to put permanent bed structures in that area.

Finding Customers

If I could offer one piece of advice to the small scale grower, it would be this: quality matters. Yes, quality products are included in this statement, but so are quality relationships. Do not overlook this. It is of the utmost importance. You will feel the need to “sell” your business to consumers around you, but when you produce high-quality crops, it eliminates the need to do so. When you grow in harmony with nature, it shows. Most customers are more than happy to be buying produce grown and harvested a few miles down the road rather than having truckloads shipped in from who knows where. They understand the impact it has on the local economy. It is important to share your values with your customers. This paints a clear picture of the farmer they are agreeing to partner with and builds a quality relationship

What a Tiny Farm Cultivates

Cultivating Family

Growing food also means friends and family gathered around the table cutting into freshly baked sourdough bread and nearby are cherry tomatoes sprinkled on top of a freshly picked salad. Community gatherings to support one another’s dreams and visions are what growing food means to me. And we can’t forget about the dahlias blooming in the cottage garden, or ‘Kellogg’s Breakfast’ ripe tomatoes hanging on the vine. Farming sparks a joy that is so abundant that it forces me to connect to the people and beauty around me daily.

Cultivating Community

Mentorship is such an excellent opportunity to become invested in your community. When you have experienced hands-on learning through a working mentorship, it connects you. It connects you to the farmer who is mentoring you, you become close to the environment around you, and ultimately, it’s connecting you to the things you are trying to accomplish—one day down the road.

Cultivating Self

Investing in yourself looks different for many of us. For me, it means spending time in the garden when there isn’t work to be done (or should I say when I have no intentions of working). I have my cup of coffee under the pavilion in the raised bed garden every morning. It’s my quiet place and my sanctuary—it is where I am surrounded by the beauty and awe of what I’ve been given to steward. I’m left feeling grateful and rejuvenated by the time I finish off my cup.

Cultivating Good Food

Small-scale growers who implement good stewardship practices on any level show their community and families in a very tangible way how they care for the food that ends up on their tables. The idea shouldn’t be to grow food; we should all adopt the concept of growing food in a sustainable way that betters the environment and teaches principles that many can adapt and quickly implement themselves.

Direct Seeding

Let’s discuss what it means to direct seed. Simply put, it is a method where you plant the seeds outside, directly into the ground. Reference each seed packet for spacing and planting instructions. With this method, seeds will germinate, sprout, and produce food. Then the plant dies, and you start the process again. Sounds pretty easy, right? It is. While you don’t get a head start on your growing season when direct seeding, you do save time and eliminate steps like transplanting and hardening off when you direct seed your crops. Some plants do not like being transplanted, so for those varieties, direct seeding is always your best option for a successful crop.

Direct seeding will also help keep your systems efficient (I’ll explain how in chapter 7). With good timing and techniques, you should have no issues with germination and there is minimal cultivation needed to direct seed.

One thing to note would be how you plan on seeding your beds. You could do this by hand or with a mechanical seeder. If you are directly seeding several beds, I would think about the time required to do it by hand and perhaps consider investing in a mechanical precision seeder.

Crops that benefit from direct seeding Carrots Radish Rutabaga Turnips Arugula Parsnips Beets Beans

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cool Springs Press (January 24, 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 076037645X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0760376454
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.59 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8 x 0.65 x 10 inches