Keep the farm operation small

Keep the farm operation small, Logsdon advices.  Virgil sent a similar message fifty years before the Christian era. In Georgics, Book Two, he wrote his warning in verse.

The farmer’s chores come round

in seasons and cycles, as the earth each year retraces its own tracks ....

Time and again, year on year,

vines bow beneath a cloud and sink into the grip of

undergrowth -- ever more to do!

So cast a hungry eye on a big estate if you’re inclined,

but tend a small one.

New gardeners alway violate this rule.  They want it all, now. So beds are too big, crops too diverse.  New gardeners never gauge the time it takes to care for all this bounty.  Things go down hill fast.  Not enough time, too much work, and too many weeds conspire to turn a good idea into a guilt-ridden nightmare.  Start small and build gradually.  Once a small garden becomes easy, add another bed, try a new plant variety.  Branch out from those easy tomatoes to fussier eggplants and peppers.  

Americans are well trained by advertisers to think big.  With farming, however, big is not necessarily better.  A well-organized small garden can support more plants in a hundred square feet than a poorly run garden three times as large.

“In the United Stares,” says Hugh Popenoe at the University of Florida, “we’ve always talked about the fact that, as farms become larger, they become more efficient.  But we’re talking about comparing a fifty-acre farm to a five-thousand acre farm.  We’ve never talked about farms of two, three, or four acres.  As farms become smaller than three acres, yield start increasing dramatically.”

My final rule is the Rule of Small Steps.  Taking care of an acre of land is daunting. Remember that football field.  Even with two-thirds of the plot planted to lawn, and Joe, the lawn guy to mow if for me, I need to break my work into small steps.  The thought of planting 27 annual beds overwhelms me.  But planting two flats of snapdragons is a walk in the park.  Weeding 1000 feet of perennial borders seems impossible but put me the tulip bed for an afternoon and I’m happy.