Income from Your Backyard: Farm to Main Street

Photo: 1900 garden produce, Alberta.

By Jac Smit
Jan. 16, 2009

Backyard gardening, poultry or small livestock is today mostly presented as supplementing household nutrition and/or income. A lot of the media presents it as a hobby, which has some health and economic sideline benefits.

My personal history began as a teenager. My brother and I grew vegetables on a half acre, with USDA 4-H advice. We sold to two markets; retail at a roadside/intersection stand and wholesale to a girl’s summer camp. My father delivered.

At about the same time my ‘uncle Ben’ supported his family by growing tobacco in his small backyard in Amsterdam during the German occupation. He sold to German soldiers for cash. And he kept a few chickens for family protein.

SPIN [small plot intensive] claims US$50,000 per half acre is not exceptional. There is an experiment in Sydney Australia that says it can do $75,000. And yes, greenhouse, fish pond and “Roof-Wall-Fence-Canopy” can do $50,000 on one quarter acre and contribute more environmental benefits per crop yield.

Worldwide there are a hundred inspirational and duplicatable cases.

• Women in Delhi, India raise silk worms and spin their silk in upper story porches
• Women in Douala, Cameroon raise backyard guinea pigs. Guinea Pig meat has the highest meat price in the market.
• Women in Lima Peru raise quail and sell a quail lunch plate in a cooperative restaurant, one quail for one dollar.
• Women in Durban, South Africa grow medicinal herbs, for which there is a good market.
• Women in Kabul, Afghanistan are raising mint individually and processing for market in a cooperative.
• Teenage girls in Cairo, Egypt are raising vegetables Hydroponicly on their home roofs and saving for college.

My personal best dollar per hour was maple syrup from street and yard maples. I hung the buckets on the trees before school, collected sap before dinner and after dinner boiled the sap in the backyard to second-best quality syrup. Sadly I had to sell at wholesale. Homework did not get done.

For small backyards and for those committed to reducing their home’s heating and cooling bills the roof-wall-fence-and canopy [or arbor] residential farm may be a ‘best bet’. In addition to what the teenagers are doing in Cairo, every fence offers the opportunity to grow vines [tomato, peas, zucchini, etc.].

A productive wall requires a larger investment and has greater ecological benefits. The canopy is installed over a driveway, patio, or many other options. Essentially with roof-wall-fence-canopy no ground space is required, so a three dimension quarter-acre backyard yields more than a one dimension half acre one.

My father’ backyard success, with the help of teenagers, was selling meat poultry to institutions, college and hospital. Dad and teenagers raised capettes [desexed], slaughtered and dressed them, froze them, and delivered on a pre-agreed schedule. We all got direct benefits. Yes! all in a more or less half acre.

Yes, if you are good at marketing, you can earn real money in your backyard. And it’s being done all over the world.

Please send in your cases.

See From the Desk of Jac Smit here.

Multi-cropping: Producing two or more crops/products in the same space as one

By Jac Smit
Feb 4, 2009

In the 21st Century we are reading and hearing more and more about high yield small-scale urban-metropolitan agriculture production. One method I have not been seeing, perhaps I look in the wrong places, is multi-cropping.

A well known historic method from pre-Columbian time, which also projects to the future, is the “Three Sisters”. Three sets of seeds are planted at the same time, Corn, Squash and Beans. The beans climb the corn stalk and the squash covers the ground. The squash reduces weeding and reduces evaporation of soil moisture. The beans have relatively deep roots and return nitrogen as well as carbon the soil. The corn stalks are particularly good as a source of litter and compost. A recent experiment at Cornell University found that this combination produced as many calories per acre as the latest monocropping in Iowa.

For the small-scale operator three crops are better than one for the dinner plate or Main Street.

For hundreds of years farmers in Vietnam have been producing rice and fish in the same field. This requires a bit more precision than the Three Sisters. Planting feeding and harvesting have narrow time windows. The benefits of carbohydrate and protein are worth the effort. And the fish offal enriches the soil. Recent studies find that this practice is dominantly in peri-urban areas, close to market. As would be the case in a small-scale urban site in Europe or America the water is grey water.

A similar method is common in Thailand’s cities and in other countries including Taiwan. Here I refer to “Poultry over Fish Tank to Vegetable Raised Bed”. Simply, chicken cages are built over fish tanks. The fish consume chicken waste; not their only nutrition. And the bottom of the fish tanks is cleared as compost-fertilizer for the vegetable beds. With the rice and fish it produces carbs and protein. It is better suited to the quarter-acre backyard farm.

A common method in more temperate climates is “Chicken and Vegetable”. This simple ‘Lazy Man’ method uses the chickens to create compost and fertilizer. Season by season the poultry area and the vegetable area are switched, vegetable area is usually larger. The start of the process is known as “Chicken-Powered Composting”.

Organic waste of many sorts is piled, as it becomes biologically active crickets, worms, microbes the birds scratch and feed, which accelerates and enriches the compost. Chicken offal can usefully be added. The next season compost is distributed or the chicken-compost space is taken over by the veggies.

In my own background I worked for a farmer who raised goats. At night we corralled them. At the end of two years the corral was moved and the former space became a vegetable plot.

At simpler method is known as “Oats & Peas”. Somewhat like the “Three Sisters”, short climbing peas are planted with oats and two crops are produced in the same space. The harvests are at different times and the solid benefits from the carbon sequestering of the peas are more than the oats.

And some folks say you can’t sensibly grow grains in the city.

Does any reader have good photos?

See From the Desk of Jac Smit here.