2 acres to use

burrellman

i have 2 acres of decent, level land. as i inherited it and i have never farmed - and dont want to rent it out i would like opinions on what best to do to make something from it (even a small return on some good ol fashioned hard work) rather than leave it over grown and no use to anybody...
sheep, plant trees, potatoes?

iverjohnston

Are you near any scenic areas? The seaside or a costal road? If so have you thought about a basic type of campsite ?Iver

burrellman

not near anything touristy but good idea...i forgot to say i have a ford 4000 - tho again with only 2 acres im not sure what use that will be
keep em coming

maddragon

Grow a forest garden

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1856230082

TopTec

2 acres of broadleaf would be a wonderful place for your family, especially the kids.

TT

49801

TopTec wrote: »

2 acres of broadleaf would be a wonderful place for your family, especially the kids.

TT

Poly tunnel and veg?

treefan

apple orchard

just do it

The smallholdings forum might yield more results for you;)

darlett

If you have the time and energy and inclination to turn even half an acre of it over to veg and spuds it would provide you with plenty of grub.

If you wanna go mega on it, then a go of fruit bushes, trees, afore-mentioned polytunnels and sure why not a bee-hive too( great for pollinating your tom-toms. Sounds like heaven

bogman_bass

dont bother with spuds, cabbages or onions. basically anything thats cheep to buy in the shops because it will cost you more to grow than you can produce.

Sir Pompous Righteousness

Either a car park or a bog snorkelling course.

KatyMac

Apple orchard with the old fashioned apple trees that AEOS people are supposed to plant

Conmaicne Mara

I would also be against planting cheap veg, all it will yield is work.

There are lists of expensive veg online if you search, not sure if herbs are cheap or dear really (legal ones anyway).

You could try a plant nursery maybe, but I know nothing about the profit or lack thereof.

Teagasc have a diversification part of their website, there might be an idea in there for you. They also have a free veg growing guide as a .pdf you can download.

I wonder how rare breed poultry would fare?

Two acres isn't much so don't expect huge returns.

Markcheese

Specialist veg, herbs and salads .... Couple of tunnels ... Depends a bit on where in the country you are ( ie a Market for yr produce ) how far it's from your house ... And how much time you have for it ....

Actually flowers, probably more money in it than veg ...

F.D

i wouldnt imagine you could compete with the imported fruit / veg / flowers, or even the bigger producers here, maybe you could plant it with some fast growing timber for coppicing and sell as firewood in years to come after that maybe fatten a few lambs? know nothing about them or if they would leave you any money

ootbitb

Baled silage, free range eggs, pigs. There are people rearing calves on less land but herd no. may be an issue.

1chippy

mushroom houses, broiler units or poly tunnels would give you max gain per acre imo. fair bit of investment and work though.

49801

just like to point out about veg that really ticks me off in the super markets.... veg produced FAR afied. Its practically impossible to Irish Onions or Garlic for example. Take a look at the shelves and see what has come a long distance and evaluate if is practical to grow yourself. Garlic is one that regularly ticks me off. Fierce easy to grow (Inlaws grow it)

Conmaicne Mara

Supermarkets are all about €€€. There is reason to this as well. I watched a programme last Thursday night I think with your man from the River Cottage Cookbook on it, about free range chickens and house raised chickens. There was a woman who refused to buy the free range chicken after seeing the house raised chickens. Her reasoning was she had a budget, and that's the cold hard reality of it. It's fine to say buy this, that, or the other, but if a persons pocket can't then they buy what's produced far afield for less. If you want Irish produced items, farmers markets I suppose or grow them yourself. Supermarket are attractive as they "appear" to cost the consumer less of their disposable income on food.

The hawlk

Unless you need a good cash crop then just feed a few hoggets

redzerologhlen

Conmaicne Mara wrote: »

Supermarkets are all about €€€. There is reason to this as well. I watched a programme last Thursday night I think with your man from the River Cottage Cookbook on it, about free range chickens and house raised chickens. There was a woman who refused to buy the free range chicken after seeing the house raised chickens. Her reasoning was she had a budget, and that's the cold hard reality of it. It's fine to say buy this, that, or the other, but if a persons pocket can't then they buy what's produced far afield for less. If you want Irish produced items, farmers markets I suppose or grow them yourself. Supermarket are attractive as they "appear" to cost the consumer less of their disposable income on food.

I agree with that but I took a different approach, I just stopped eating chicken altogether!!

Conmaicne Mara

redzerologhlen wrote: »

I agree with that but I took a different approach, I just stopped eating chicken altogether!!

Yeah, that's an option too. I like chicken the odd time. I don't buy the cheap birds any longer because of a difference in taste not based on how they were reared.

iverjohnston

Hi again,
If you are near (mile or so) to a good sized county town, you could split it up for allotments. 50 plots at €50 a year would be nice! (you would be hard pressed to make that out of sheep etc)
Iver

milkprofit

Decide which is most important to u to make money
or to use the land
If family man veg fruit flowers pigs etc great for family sell excess
But u will not make money only have a healthy diet and alot of hard work and fun

I dont know

iverjohnston wrote: »

Hi again,
If you are near (mile or so) to a good sized county town, you could split it up for allotments. 50 plots at €50 a year would be nice! (you would be hard pressed to make that out of sheep etc)
Iver

I was randomly looking into this near my county town just recently but couldn’t find anywhere. Although, in my searches I found minutes from a council meeting last year where they are looking for a suitable location to offer local people allotments.
I think that could be a good option for you. Keep one plot for you own family’s fruit & veg and let out the rest!

kerryjack

You could use it to grow lawn and take the sod off it , there is about 5000 sq yards in an acre , at 2 euro a sq yard , that's not a bad return for your acre