Publisher Description

Offering proven techniques and practical advice, this inspiring handbook covers all aspects of successfully running a small organic farm. With expert tips on everything from buying land to creating a niche market for your products, Karl Schwenke shows you how to naturally enrich your soil, acquire necessary equipment, consistently grow abundant crops, and manage farm finances. You'll enjoy learning essential skills like haying and fencing as you turn your organic farming dream into a profitable reality.

Back Cover

When I first wrote Successful Small-Scale Farming eleven years ago, writes Karl Schwenke in the preface to this new edition, "an 'organic farmer' was synonymous with a 'lonely hippie troublemaker.' Today he is classed somewhere between a high-priced elitist and an opportunistic liar." So begins this classic guide to organic small-scale agriculture, fully updated and revised for the 1990s -- for a new generation of readers who would like to live closer to the earth. Successful Small-Scale Farming introduces anyone owning (or planning to own) a small farm to both the harsh realities and the real potential involved in making a full- or part-time living on the land. Karl Schwenke's clear-eyed approach to the best farming methods covers a wide range of proven techniques and practical advice, including: * How to improve, conserve, and enrich your soil organically, to ensure the highest (and healthiest) yields. * What machinery you'll need and how to use it. * The best "cash crops" and specialty crops to grow for profit and how to raise them. * How to use innovative strategies to find or create a market "niche" for your farm's crops or services. * A concise overview of essential farmstead skills, such as haying, fencing, and managing a woodlot. * Numerous charts and tables that put useful calculations at your fingertips. With today's increased concern for the quality of the food we eat and the health of our environment, Successful Small-Scale Farming offers a unique and invaluable perspective on the future of agriculture. Karl Schwenke's message -- that small-scale farms can be cleaner, smarter, and more efficient than corporate agribusiness -- has never been so relevant as it is today.

Flap

When I first wrote Successful Small-Scale Farming eleven years ago, writes Karl Schwenke in the preface to this new edition, "an 'organic farmer' was synonymous with a 'lonely hippie troublemaker.' Today he is classed somewhere between a high-priced elitist and an opportunistic liar." So begins this classic guide to organic small-scale agriculture, fully updated and revised for the 1990s -- for a new generation of readers who would like to live closer to the earth. Successful Small-Scale Farming introduces anyone owning (or planning to own) a small farm to both the harsh realities and the real potential involved in making a full- or part-time living on the land. Karl Schwenke's clear-eyed approach to the best farming methods covers a wide range of proven techniques and practical advice, including: * How to improve, conserve, and enrich your soil organically, to ensure the highest (and healthiest) yields. * What machinery you'll need and how to use it. * The best "cash crops" and specialty crops to grow for profit and how to raise them. * How to use innovative strategies to find or create a market "niche" for your farm's crops or services. * A concise overview of essential farmstead skills, such as haying, fencing, and managing a woodlot. * Numerous charts and tables that put useful calculations at your fingertips. With today's increased concern for the quality of the food we eat and the health of our environment, Successful Small-Scale Farming offers a unique and invaluable perspective on the future of agriculture. Karl Schwenke's message -- that small-scale farms can be cleaner, smarter, and more efficient than corporate agribusiness -- has never been so relevant as it is today.

Author Biography

Karl Schwenke is a professional writer who lives with wife Sue on a farm in Newbury, Vermont, where they have raised strawberries, pigs and hay among other crops. Together, this couple has written the book Build Your Own Stone House, and Karl wrote the Storey title Successful Small-Scale Farming. His other work includes Sierra North and Sierra South from Wilderness Press, an organization in Berkeley, California, that he co-founded after graduating from college. Karl has also written In a Pig's Eye (Chelsea Green Publishing).

Table of Contents

Preface Preface to the First Edition Introduction 1 Soils 2 Plants 3 Farm Machinery 4 Farm Practices 5 Cash Crops 6 Other Cash & Specialty Crops 7 The Whole Farm 8 Conclusions Appendix I: Handy Hints, Formulas & trivia Appendix II: Charts, Tables & Addenda Land Trust Organizations Periodicals of Interest to Small-Scale Farmers Suggested Reading Index

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