New vegetable venture and the MT573

[Mud2Money]

Well we decided this year we want to get into vegetables. Most of the acreage is still for hay. We are starting small to test and learn the waters. We have a small green house and I have 250 plants currently in care.

The MT573 has been exceptionally fun and fast for getting ground prepped. We are tight budgeting this venture and being resourceful. I fabricated nice bed shaper to mount on my tiller after seeing a few wood ones etc. This was a awesome choice. Being the tiller is 7’ wide it uses less depth to build the desired bed specs. Once I get some free time to blast the 3 newly fabricated implements I’ll give them a good paint job.

Here is some photos for fun and results. Planting this weekend/week. Multiple photos were of test steps with the tiller. The final results were 19 x130’ long beautiful rows 4’ apart. 11-12” high. 3’ wide at the base 2’8” at the top. I added the 2x12 to make a full funnel. This helped firm the beds slightly to cap them. We just had a massive rain and no erosion. Can watch the dirt flow into the board for depth control easily. Also tills what I drove over preventing compaction.

 

[MossRoad]

Very nice!

Who are you planning on selling the veggies to, if I may ask?

Roadside stand? Contract with grocery store(s)?

I had a friend that had a contract with a local grocery store for sweet corn for years and years. Just a few acres. He also sold from roadside stand.

What types of veggies are you planning on?

Good luck with your venture.

 

[Mud2Money]

We are going to start with a good size road side. Many of the old generation are gone or retired now. The town is a summer boom town and we are 1/4 mile off the main route. 1 mile up is a huge state park on Lake Huron and camping park 1.5 miles down. Eventually would like to go U pick and maybe a little store front in town. We have lots variety of tomato , peppers , beans , pease , corn , broccoli , cabbage , onion , Brussels, and a lot of herbs. Targets will be getting into the local restaurants. Multiple nice ones along the river area.

 

[MossRoad]

Sounds good. Again, good luck with your venture.

 

[TimberFarm]

Best of luck to you.
When I was a kid a friend of mine in school had a dairy farm and their barn caught fire and burned to the ground. He told me they would have lost the farm had it not been for the idea to start "Pick Your Own Strawberries" his parents and grandparents came up with.
It took a few lean years he said, but then it absolutely took off. They expanded into more and more vegetables and built their little shed roadside stand into a Farmers Market. He took over after high school and really expanded even more. Bought up surrounding farms and had over 1,000 acres in production.
Now a word of caution: he got so wrapped up in it, never took a break at all and ended up having a heart attack and died at age 48.

 

[Yander]

Good luck and keep us posted

 

[Avenger]

Thats an excellent idea! I grew up in the heart of potato country. We used potato ridgers, which essentially did the same thing. A local U-Pick farm has their rows set up the exact same way, only they drape plastic over the mounds. Not sure exactly how they accomplish that on such a large scale, maybe 10 acres of rows. In my garden (when I had a garden) I attempted making a potato ridger, but it didnt work out. I do have a woods tiller, maybe I should fabercobble something like this?! Looks to do an awesome job! I'm flabbergasted! Something so simple and easy to do... why didn't I think of that (or research others doing it)??

Good luck to you on your new venture!

 

[Mud2Money]

The idea for the tiller attachment came from searching for larger hillers and bedders to fit my HP tractor. Upon research I found a small older YouTube clip. Being crafty and a machinist I said yeah I got that no problem. I had some scrap I beam with a 8” plate welded on one side and offset. It works like the bedders do and acts as dirt pans. Eventually I’d like to make a tension spool for mulch mat and another series of pans to auto cover the edges of the mat. That’s how the large places do it.

Our goal is to grow to using the full 10 acres. We are close to a major border crossing and city so this will aid in things as well. All the surrounding farms on the borders are loosing the privacy and spacey life style on one hand but benefits of more customers and close by and I’ve noticed cost are much higher for plants and vegetables in the cities. The vegetable farms around are family owned and ran still. They do incredibly well and better each year with 30-300 acre setups.


I quit my travel job of high stress long hours and always away from loved ones and pets. My goals were to get back to life’s basics and back to family. Create something together that we all enjoy and can benefit from. I wanted to be home nightly. I got my cdl and started my own excavating company as well just doing small residential and working with other locals. I worked on a farm down the road for years growing up but never got the itch scratched of growing vegetables. Wildlife and nature is a big passion of ours and we share a large appreciation for the outdoors.