Farmers

gorgeous, what a great mix. He looks fit!

 

They do kill foxes. Kick and stumping on them actually. Also the good point of Alpacas is that they do their business on one spot on the 'communal dunnies' and not all over the paddocks like horses or cows. Easier to maintain paddocks

 

ooooo - that was a bad joke ... in all seriousness tho ... the demand for goats meat (prefer Boer) is going thru the roof if you're wanting stock.

I, in no way, consider myself a serious farmer. I am just dabbling as part of "retirement" ... but I love playing in - and improving - the soils and if it brings in cash even better. Beats watching the soapies

 

I love garlic but it is hard to find good quality products in fruit and vegetable shops and it's guaranteed that the most of supermarket products are imported. Lizzie, do your know why? Is the industry so new in Australia that supermarket or fruit& vegetable wholesaler have not yet started sourcing products locally?

Have you tried Farmers direct? If you have not it's worthwhile to check out. Might be yet another avenue to sell your products.

Do you make 'commercial' quantities of your preservatives? How did you started that adventure?

 

Great read @Lizzie ! Well done, you've picked great niche markets and as you said in the right location.
Im a fan of garlic, I had a go in the backyard vege patch with only a small amount, I ended up with 10 garlics but the process was good fun. For a first attempt I was pretty happy with the outcome. Not sure if size matters but they were double what you get in woolies. And as they werehome grown and "organic" I could charge the Mrs double I'm looking forward to getting a garden going again.
I'll have to keep an eye out for that book you mentioned to, sounds like a good simple philosophy. You need to find something in demand, a speciality, and easy to grow!

I remember reading a while back about cattle from south west Qld, around birdsville that were being sold to Japan/Asian markets. Out there the cattle just roam around doing there thing with no interruption or chemicals.... Once the "organic" label started to kick off, they were able to charge almost double for the same product.

There have been some good stories on landline for niche farming and the like

 

Hi guys.

I've written in another thread (my intro??) that we have 100 acres on the south coast (Berry) and graze cattle. We lease the neighbouring farm and have about 70 angus cattle between the 2 places. The value of the land makes it unprofitable from a ROI point of view in this neck of the woods, but it's certainly a wonderful lifestyle. I also have a PAYG job to fund my little passion.

My folks worked this farm alongside another place they had in the Central West (NSW) and made a good go of it but it was more of an income producing farm (ours is more of a big backyard.) We're considering buying a few hundred acres of dry-land farming to graze a little further out where we can finish the steers off and they'll do pretty well there. Again, probably not the wisest use of equity but it's in the blood!

We're currently tidying up our PPOR on the farm and considering what to do next. We can either extend this place or rent it out as a cabin (yes, it's that small!) and build a new place on the other side of the farm out of sight. Self contained tourist accommodation is in high demand here due to the proximity to Sydney - It would be a nice little retirement nest egg but not sure I want to share my patch of paradise with other people.

IMHO the only way to really make money out of cattle is to value add. Down the track we might look into selling organic beef where we would kill, package and market direct to the public because there's a real market for that, but we're busy enough ATM.

 

Hey allgood,

We have poll shorthorn, parents run a stud. Its definitely hard life to give up if you were brought up on farming. I love it but not the hours of hard work needed to run it for profit. I will most likely do the same as you one day run commercial stock probably half of what the land can actually carry so i dont have to do much with them.

 

Yep, we run it as a business but it's great not having to rely on it for our only form of income. It's certainly more of a lifestyle thing than a money making thing.

Mind you, cattle prices are up at the moment!

 

Yeah cattle prices are very nice right now and its expected to be like this for the next 2 years or so

 

p.s. here's my two "non working" dogs ... both rescue pets with working dog genetics

 

Definitely non-working. They look like sweeties. Nice coats - I see border collie?

 

The one in front is a Border/Koolie cross - energiser bunny on steroids so would've been going mad in a suburban backyard ... the white is (we think) a Border/Retriever/Kelpie/Staffy cross - but really - who knows ... he's just super gentle and cute

 

My in laws have a sheep/cattle farm in high rainfall country in South East S.A. They had 6000 acres,the interesting thing with this is the old man has now retired,keeping 3000 acres as a "hobby" and selling 3000.Originally his father bought the land at $250 per acre in 1970,recently they got $2600 per acre,so as well as riding the sheep's back in the good times,and not so good times, pop has become a property investor as such with out realising it.Being very old school and frugal theylive very simply and do not spend a dollar they dont have to.

 

wow - 3,000 acres is boggling as it is ... where is his property?

Just as a bit of interest - due to a conversation going on in the Global Warming thread ... thought I'd post two photos taken today - the two photos are - literally - 10 paces apart on our property.

Please note that we haven't seeded the land at all - the grass growing has just "done it's own thing". Neither has been watered or had any other action taken since January - asides from me slashing the long and green grass (top photo) about a month ago as it was getting to long

Pasture improved via deep rip, digging in green manure crop and slashing to mulch:



Untouched:

 

@Lizzie garlic guru,

I have purchased a jar of local crushed garlic, is this the best alternative to quick ready to go garlic?? I prefer the real stuff But is this the best, closest thing to use? In the past I have tried the mass produced stuff but it was rubbish.
Do you preserve any garlic?

 

80% garlic and it actually looks like garlic!

 

I wish ... no ... we can barely keep up with the demand for the fresh stuff we grow. Looking at harvesting just under 1,000kg this year and it sells out within months.

Have a couple of major restaurants wanting supply this year - mainly of the unusual stuff like the scapes and smalls - so already wishing we had another 10,000 plants in the ground.

I do make a really mean (as in soooooooo good) wine pickled garlic - but peeling the garlic is a pain even with a machine so only for special events like a festival.

 

And hopefully it takes like full strength garlic too ... not that insipid - add 2 heaped teaspoons stuff - the Chinese provide