Reddit reviews The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower's Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming
We found 5 Reddit comments about The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower's Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
New Society Publishers
I'd recommend reading The Market Gardner by JM Fortier because I'd imagine your climate is similar to theirs. It's a micro garden on 1.5 acres on a 10 acre property. They generate about 80k a year through CSA farm shares and farmers markets. If you have a local market that is not saturated you could definitely generate income with your short growing season and become fully self sufficient.
The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower's Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming https://www.amazon.com/dp/0865717656
I love this book on intensive small scale gardening. You probably don't want to follow their path to organic vegetable sales, but maybe you do.
Water is a big issue. You can use a large tank to help extend your water access after your well dries up, and if you build a larger shed, you can capture rainwater. You can also find a water delivery service that can fill up your tank as needed. It won't save your garden if all diesel delivery is stopped permanently, but that's an absolute worst case (and one that might stop so much pulling from those deep wells too).
You know if you have animals, you'll have to live there or at least visit twice a day, right? That's not a hard rule, but livestock require a lot of attention. If you were thinking about leaving them for a once a week visit, something will probably kill them, from falling into a hole to predators, to some downed tree blocking access to water. Whatever.
After reading most of the comments here, I've been wondering the same. Another example is Jean-Martin Fortier, author of The Market Gardener who seems to be doing quite well for himself on only a few acres of land.
The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower's Handbook for Small-scale Organic Farming https://www.amazon.com/dp/0865717656/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fzm-ybSPDRHKH
If you’re growing the right crops and doing high efficiency things like potato towers, yeah, that’s about what you need. Here’s a great book. A bit more focused on farming vs homesteading, but the methods carry over.
https://www.amazon.com/Market-Gardener-Successful-Handbook-Small-scale/dp/0865717656