pegdrums wrote: » im based in Cork. Near the city. What about yourself? Do you have a bit of you own land with some tunnels up and running? oh and thanks for the nots recommendation, Id seen it previously but had forgotten about with all the rest of the information Ive been discovering getting piled into my head!
SouthWesterly wrote: » North kerry. No tunnel but built a 12x4ft greenhouse for seedlings. I've 4 acres with a half acre for veg/orchard and the rest rented to a local for silage. He maintains the land and ive no outlay
pegdrums wrote: » thanks for the reply. When you say you have no outlay do you mean the rent you receive covers the mortgage (?) for the land? Are you up and running selling veg so? Let me know if a PM would be ok... Upon further research and advice from the few posts here it does look like buying several acres more than you need and renting what you aren't going to use is the smart option. If for other reason I can never find 1 to 2 acres of land advertised unless it is for a dwelling.
pegdrums wrote: » sounds great. The no dig approach is something I would like to aspire to. However I have heard that it can be difficult to get enough compost of decent quality. This would be on a commercial basis....topping up the beds annually that is. The idea of buying a house with some land really sounds like the best way to go. Being able to rent land you're not using is perfect. However we already own a house so trying to get a 20% deposit together for the move could be tricky so renting some land might be the option. Unless I got a business loan, that's an avenue I have to explore......... How has your veg been working out in the no dig beds?
Good morning Pegdrums! Just wondering how you got on with the market garden mate….did you go ahead?!
Hey, how are you? Sorry for late reply. Nope! I did do a day on a small veg farm which was a great experience, would love to be able to do more. We had a house renovation going on and are at the tale end of that now. Still doing my homework and gonna start looking for land to lease to try start something. Maybe do a 4 day week in work to begin with. Logistically it isn't the easiest thing in the world to start but at least my wife is more on board now than she was!
Do you have an idea of what you want to sell and how you would sell it?
It is the second year in my allotment in Ireland (Cork) and I learned a lot last year. This year is a lot better. Your plan is something I would be contemplating of doing in the coming years.
i wonder if it's worth identifying a particular crop or set of crops and specialising?
not that i know anything about selling veg, but we grow our own elephant garlic - which is easy to grow - and were commenting recently that for a crop that so easy to grow (and store), it's vanishingly rare in the shops. though someone did once tell me they think they saw it in fallon & byrne for about €5 a bulb.
given that you'd probably easily grow it at 20cm spacing, you'd get a theoretical max of approx 2,500 bulbs out of a 10mx10m plot - selling them for 2 quid each, that's 5k.
Given they are about 1.50 a clove to buy , plus fertilizer, time planting, weeding, harvesting, drying. You would be bankrupt selling at €2.
For elephant garlic? As mentioned, I've not seen them in the shops.
And you say €1.50 a clove? Do you specifically mean per clove, or per bulb?
I presume they mean €1.50 per clove to buy as your seed stock that you plant in the ground. So you’re only making €0.50/bulb by if selling at €2/bulb. Year one could be just a clove production year. So if you got five plantable cloves per bulb you could have 100 cloves to plant in year from around 20 cloves. Build from there.
I have a market garden in Roscommon. we also have a small poultry flock (100 layers) and offer a csa scheme.
we are in a very fortunate circumstance of no rent/mortgage/debt.
If you are setting up with any personal or business debt, it is tough to be feasible. you need to be very near a very good market. that might be more possible for you in cork than in the west. It's definitely something to consider. how much profit per month do you need to pay your business and personal bills, and still stay afloat. can that really be done in your locality? be completely honest with yourself about that. maybe you have a great market near you, I dont know.
really delve into your figures. how much time and cost does it take you to get each crop to market. can you sell at that plus at least 100% markup? make sure to include your labour.
don't worry about wash rooms until you are profitable. wash them off well under the tap for their appearanceand sell them as un washed - goods sold as washed are in for tighter regulations about water quality. once you are profitable, and know what your focus and market is going to be start really delving into efficiencies such as wash and pack rooms.
A cold room: can be handy but not necessary unless selling to shops. Id advise buying a non runner refrigerated van, parking it up, and plugging it in. cheaper than buying and installing a cold room.
CSAs really depend on how good an educator and salesman you are, and again, what your market is like. if you are near a slightly bohemian city/large town you will do well. if not, you won't.
selling to shops: can be worth it, but again depends on market. the lower price and added headaches that wholesale brings rely on moving much more produce to be profitable.
we make a living in the rural west, but again, are in a very fortunate situation re costs.
EDIT: Jim Cronin is the guru in cork for market gardening. often offers courses through NOTS. but dont get hung up on the growing side of things. Growing things is easy (relative to:) business and sales is the harder part, especially if you have never been in business before. I have run two businesses before this one, and even then you really need to push to be a great salesman.
Hi all,
apologies for the extremely late response. Loads of excellent advice and anecdotes there so huge thanks for that.
After a lot of number crunching it just wasn't feasible to do it for us. Initially I thought about sing the allotment to turn a small profit, even just to cover the cost of its rent, tools, seeds etc but life and family got busy so not even that worked.
When everything calmed down I returned to the idea but the numbers just wouldn't add up in our favour. Im in the city so would have to rent land. Electricity? water? transport?
If I was in my twenties id be more likely to give it a go as there would be at least 3-5 years before I'd be able to call the business 'settled' or 'established'. Im 42 now and between a new baby, mortgage, credit union loans etc, starting any business would be tough but especially one dependant on weather!
Best of luck and huge admiration to those who have already taken the plunge!
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