Farm Small Farm Smart

All of the guests for this episode are listeners of the show. Listeners just like you.

A few months ago I asked for feedback on the first season of the show, and I received a ton of it.

Today, I will share some of it with you.

If you submitted feedback for the show and gave me the OK to read it, thank you, this episode is yours.

As humans I think we live in a guru culture. A culture that puts people on a pedestal.

And that can be dangerous because it creates limiting beliefs.

Beliefs that we could never be like them.

Beliefs that we aren't good enough.

Beliefs that we have some sort of unfair disadvantage.

Beliefs that we can't do what they do.

Because they are an expert, and we aren't.

A lot of people view Curtis as that expert and put him on that pedestal of knowledge.

They create limiting beliefs in their mind and tell themselves, I could never do what Curtis does.

I have sat in workshops with Curtis and heard it first hand, time and time again.

And if you believe that, that you could never do what Curtis does, then Henry Ford said it best...

Whether you think you can, or think you can't - your right.

This episode today is for the people who think they can.

If you ever feel stuck or stalled or find yourself struggling and wondering if you can actually do it, then here's an episode for you.

An episode full of stories of "ordinary" people doing the hard work to go after what they want in life, and showing that it might not always be easy, but it is possible.

Listen to past episodes at: https://www.paperpot.co/podcast

Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

Follow PaperpotCo on Instagram:http://bit.ly/2B45VKQ

Today's episode is actually a rebroadcast of a presentation that Curtis gave in January in San Francisco.

The presentation is called Farming in the City.

In this presentation, Curtis will take you on a tour of his one third of an acre urban farm, where you will get an inside look at the day to day operations of the farm from vegetable production to sales.

Curtis will show how he farms commercially, and profitably, in backyards and on small plots of land in the city, land that he doesn't own. You'll learn about the methods and techniques that Curtis has used over the last six years to grow his sales and profits.

Listen to past episodes at: https://www.paperpot.co/podcast

Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

Follow PaperpotCo on Instagram:http://bit.ly/2B45VKQ

In this episode Curtis and I dissect an article that was published on Alternet on January 1, 2016 by farmer Jaclyn Moyer.

An article titled....

What Nobody Told Me About Small Farming: I Can't Make a Living - People say we're "rich in other ways," but that doesn't fix the ugly fact that most farms are unsustainable

This one is a good one and we cover a lot of business basics such as...

• Who is your customer? What is their demographic? And what do they want?
• What are you selling? Is that the right crop?
• What are you focusing your time on? Is that the right thing?
• And are you the right person to be doing this job.

We will break down the article to hopefully help a lot of you avoid some of the troubles that Jaclyn talked about in the article.

Listen to past episodes at: https://www.paperpot.co/podcast

Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

Follow PaperpotCo on Instagram:http://bit.ly/2B45VKQ

Scott Hebert started farming in June 2015 when his family business shut down. At that time he didn't have anything to fall back on. But he had always had an interest in farming, and within a few days of getting the income shock warning his wheels had been put in motion and he was putting a plan into place to transition into a career as a farmer.

He contacted Curtis to visit his farm, so he could start leveraging Curtis' experience to plan his farm and his future. Because he knew wanted to farm, but didn't want to be broke, therefore, he had to make money at it, and that meant he had to have a plan and a strategic approach.

And it's that approach that we will be talking about in today's show.

It's currently February 2016 and this episode was recorded with new farmer Scott Hebert a couple of months ago in December 2015.

Let's get into it and see what a transition into small scale farming is really like...

Listen to past episodes at: https://www.paperpot.co/podcast

Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

Follow PaperpotCo on Instagram:http://bit.ly/2B45VKQ

While Curtis and I were on tour we made a stop at Singing Frogs Farm in Sebastopol to visit with farmers Paul & Elizabeth Kaiser.

It's a pretty remarkable farm. The Kaisers are farming just over 2 acres and grossing over $100,000 an acre. They come from an agroforestry background and approach farming systematically as a business.

This episode is some of our thoughts from our visit.

Listen to past episodes at: https://www.paperpot.co/podcast

Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

Follow PaperpotCo on Instagram:http://bit.ly/2B45VKQ

If you want to be better off in December 2016, then the planning for that starts now in December 2015.

The biggest leverage point which for the farm season next year is right there in front of you. You just need to tease it out.

That's what today's show is about. Doing some End of Season Reflection - Thinking about How Things Went This Year, to Alter Course and Plan for Next Year.

I hope that you can use some of the information that we talk about in this episode to reflect on your 2015 farm season, so you can get better in 2016.

Listen to past episodes at: https://www.paperpot.co/podcast

Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

Follow PaperpotCo on Instagram:http://bit.ly/2B45VKQ

In today's episode Curtis and I will take a look back at the season of this show and talk about what's in store for the future for Curtis and this show.

Listen to past episodes at: https://www.paperpot.co/podcast

Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

Follow PaperpotCo on Instagram:http://bit.ly/2B45VKQ

How much work should you put into something before it gets to the point where it isn't worth it? At what point does the money, the effort, and the headache justify not doing it?

With everything in business and farming, there is always a trade off, an opportunity cost. If you are doing one, thing, then it's at the expense of something else. Because you can't do it all, and regardless of the return, sometimes it's just not worth it.

In this episode we spend a lot of time looking at how to decide if customers and crops are worth the effort.

Listen to past episodes at: https://www.paperpot.co/podcast

Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

Follow PaperpotCo on Instagram:http://bit.ly/2B45VKQ

All in Curtis produced about 17,500lbs of product off of his farm this year. That's a lot of food coming from a small space. Remember Curtis is only farming off of 15,000 sq.ft. which is spread out over 5 plots. And this year he made the most of it producing over 17,000lbs of produce on those 5 plots.

Listen to past episodes at: https://www.paperpot.co/podcast

Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

Follow PaperpotCo on Instagram:http://bit.ly/2B45VKQ

In this episode we will be talking about real world issues and troubles with restaurant customers.

How Curtis has dealt with customers who haven't paid in the past and how he has changed his procedures to help make sure that it doesn't happen again?

Curtis has learned the hard way, when you're in the real world and restaurants don't pay, you can lose a lot of money.

Listen to past episodes at: https://www.paperpot.co/podcast

Increase farm efficiency with the Paperpot Transplanter and Other Small Farm Equipment at https://www.paperpot.co/

Follow PaperpotCo on Instagram:http://bit.ly/2B45VKQ