What is the one thing you wish you knew in year one?

Question

I will be selling produce locally for the first time in the spring. I have spent a lot of time planning and researching. I have short and long term goals. I live in a very cold climate (hardiness zone 2b) but have grown personally for 5 or so years. I am prepared for the hard work. I am hoping to build slowly so that my farming can replace my income and provide most of my food (I know this will take time). I just wonder what I am forgetting or what I should know before I get down to business.

Answer 1

You haven't forgotten anything - you just have to get started! :) After nearly a decade of full-time, 2-3 acre market gardening, the one thing I learned that I pass on first and most often to people starting out, is that the first year is everything. Planning, research, prior experience, all of that is great, but you really have to get a full season of your own operation under your belt to see where you're at. Everything - your strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, viability of your plan, everything - is put into real world perspective after Year 1.

It's really common sense. Imagine building, say, a car, from parts and plans. You can spend an endless amount of time, or very little time, testing components, fiddling with details, but until you go for that test drive, what can you really tell? Maybe it drives perfectly. Yay. Maybe it falls apart. Ooops, back to the drawing board. Likely, if you've done a reasonable job, it winds up somewhere closer to the perfect end of the scale. One way or another, you've gotta know if it works and what needs adjusting, and that only comes from doing!

Preparation, of course, improves your odds dramatically. You have growing experience for your location, and realistic expectations as far as timeframe, in that you are prepared for hard work, and slow and steady growth. Those are key things you will be dealing with. One detail you didn't mention specifically, but I assume when you say you've spent a lot of time researching that that you've done, is an assessment of your market: do you have workable access to enough people  (like, farmers' market, good location for farm stand, likely CSA prospects, or some other approach) to provide the income you're hoping for? But as long as there are people around you who are buying food, I think you can build a market for quality produce.

Hope that helps. Happy farming!