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Sam’s taken a perspective that he gained on hiking the Appalachian trail and he has used it to help navigate the equally hard journey into being a full time vegetable farmer. Like the trail, Sam’s career as a farmer has spanned a lot of land going from 1/8 of an acre in town to two fenced acres a few years later.
Today Sam and I will talk about some of the challenges of growing crops on two acres, how Sam has to design his market streams to his land base, working with limited labor, and the trade- offs between growing niche crops and a wide variety of CSA crops. We’ll also touch on some of Sam’s big takeaways from his days on the trail and how that’s helped him as a farmer.
Notes from the episode with Sam McLemore:
- Importance of taking some time off.
- Even if that time isn’t long, it’s valuable.
- Dealing with 2 acres and limited labor has been a challenge.
- Mechanical tools like a tractor has made it easier.
- You pick has also helped with the harvest.
- When Sam moved onto new land he put in place a 5 year goal to have all of his infrastructure in place.
- Sharing the Harvest Book
- “You gotta feed the farmer first.”
Connect with Sam:
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