profitable things to do with 5 acres

[bdog]

I have 5 acres and I know it is never going to make me rich or support me. The land is farm land, flat as a pankake and I fenced it it all. I want the land to work for me some and make some money. I have a tractor with a FEL and about a dozen implements. My wife and I both have lots of free time to work on whatever venture we decide on.

I have tried feeding cows, and about broke even after expenses. Just don't have enough land. I can plant wheat and haygrazer for hay and make about 100 square bales a cutting. They sell for $4, my neighbor charges $1 per bale to cut and bale, so I net $300 before I deduct my time in plowing, planting, seed, etc. Not really worth it.

I am hoping to find something I could do that would allow us to net around $1000/year with the 5 acres. Like I said I am not looking for it to support me, just would be nice to have the place pay its own property taxes. Any ideas?

[DUMBDOG]

Depending upon where you are, a garden and sell the produce either roadside or a farmers market.

[egon]

The small market garden may be a good idea if the local market is supportive.

Herb plots?

Perhaps rent out garden plots?

Small greenhouse?

Bushes and shrubs for future sale?

Plant to wild prairie grass and harvest seed for to sell?

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[turnagerg]

Christmas trees?

[mysticokra]

Try growing exotic teas, mints and spices.
Sell them over the internet. You will probably make more profit on the shippping and handling, but there's great margin in health foods.

[MDSteve]

What about planting pasture and boarding 2 horses. Before my wife got horses we used to board 2 at 200-250 per horse per month. Just a thought.

Steve

[Pat]

Won't two horses pretty much reduce 5 acres to bare dirt in a fairly short period of time? They will have to be FED not pastured wth only 2 1/2 acres per head. What could you plant that would resist the traffic?


[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[MDSteve]

We have ours broken into 3 pastures. Two that have a pasture mix and one that is the dirt pasture. They were rotated between the tree and if it snowed/rained they would stay in the dirt pasture. We also feed them a scoop of gain twice a day. 100lbs bag (~$11) would last a little less than a month. Bringing them into the stalls in the evening also helped the pastures. If we didn't they would eat all day and all night. We found the important thing was to keep the horses teeth right. If a horse would loose weight we would have the Vet come out and float their teeth and most times they would come back to the proper weight. In the winter the owners would provide hay. Hay prices and availability fluctuated too much for us to foot this bill.

I guess with everything the devil is in the details.

Steve

[GAFarmer]

If the market will support it, I say go for the garden.

[mfaley]

There is a place just up the hill from us that sells Heirloom tomatoes. They sell some to those that drive past them but the sell most of them to high end restaraunts.

They have a lot of different types and they really only work full time when the tomatoes are ripe. According to them the only real work was building the relationships with the wholesale buyers.

From the outside it seems like a good operation.
Mark