i think the local extension agent would know this. it is probably different in different parts of the country. i got an acre you can use for free but the commute will kill you.

Hey Jay, the majority of my farm is all on leased property at the current moment. However, I do not pay for any of it. I trade produce to my landowners in return for the use of the property. I found that the easiest way to find the land was to post on Facebook asking friends or family if they knew anyone with a large enough backyard. One of my backyard plots is 3/4 an acre, and I found that individual through posting on craigslist. I just posted an add offering to trade produce for the use of people's backyards. I had talked to a friend of mine who does rent land to farmers and he rents it out somewhere around $250 an acre.

-Alex

Hi Jay -

First-time poster, long-time reader. Hope to become more active.

Posting on craigslist or facebook will probably yield some success. Also, consider sending out a message to your email list (assuming you have one). Post a sign on your booth during winter market. I think your acreage is going to come not from a landowner with 160+ acres but someone with a few acres or so that would like to see it put in production. Whoever you rent from, be sure you have a good agreement written up that protects your investment in the land - obviously the crops grown, but also the soil building you are sure to do. Multi-year option agreement would probably be best.

Final thought: have you considered looking into some more nontraditional spaces? I know that my city leases out land to a few farmers. The land parcels range from 3 acres to 25 acres. These are bid on each season. Depending on zoning, there may be some private city lots near the border or parcels just outside of the city that may work as well. As our city has grown, it has annexed a good deal of farmland. Although within the city, it has maintained its agricultural zoning. The owners have either long abandoned growing or have never grown in the first place. A hobby farmer (especially one just growing grass) may be interested in reducing the amount of mowing he or she needs to do.

I know one guy who grows pumpkins on 7 acres here in town, leased from the city. He also grows on a couple acres nearby that is also home to an elderly couple that no longer grow on their 3 acre lot, again in town.

Any advantage to growing closer to your more profitable market and coupling field work with your trip to market? May open up some growing spaces. But, as I understand from your posts, your day trip to market is pretty well booked already - even if the crop would be relatively low maintenance.

Robert

Thanks for the ideas!

Alex: From what I can gather by talking to my farmer friends, cash rent in these parts is $100-$200 depending on the ground and irrigation. Most remain tight lipped about price, just give a ballpark range.

Robert: Thanks for the idea. My brother in law mention someone in town who has several open lots next to them that may be interested. I also know a small farmer who farms several areas in and near town. Might ask if they would like to give up one of the smaller patches. I have farmed land at my parents farm, 35 miles away. It was less than ideal and I don't want to try that again. So probably won't try farming near my large market.

I talked with a neighbor, a mile away who is a good customer, they have some ground that is just sitting there. She didn't want to estimate how big. The only problem is there are many trees surrounding it and it might get too much shade. But at 1 mile away, it is worth looking at.

Jay

Jay, I right now do a couple of small plots in exchange for produce or just maintaining the plot. these are plots in town (I am using the SPIN model) . I just finished up putting together a flyer that I am going to use to hopefully get more plots. I am at a much smaller scale than you so I will take plots of 500 square feet with access to water but would like much larger. I also am looking for some large plots for potatoes,, melons, squash.
I know of some plots that are near trees in the country but am trying to avoid them because of critter problems. They would require a fence since I am in prime whitetail deer area.
I am using the approach of the owner not having to mow and maintain their plot as a way attract interest. I am also plan to offer produce but this can create a problem with different size lots. Being fair to everybody is my goal, but the 250'ft plot should not receive the same amount of produce as the 2500'ft plot. I am also working on a land use agreement so that something is in writing..
I hope that this is helpful john

I actually got two really good leads this morning and several smaller ones.

One is about 2 miles from my house, the other about 3.5 miles. The first one has a big area, a couple older men use to rent this space and grow sweet corn. The have since quit. They had a big farmers plant soybeans there last year. I am going to talk to them tonight.

The second one, is actually ground that the local greenhouse/nursery owns and backs up to the water treatment plant. They contacted a very large local farmer if he was interested, but the spot was too small for their big equipment and wasn't worth the hassle. I am going to stop by and talk with them too. Both places could work and are exactly what I am looking for. Since one place has already asked someone, and the other person contacted me, half the battle is over.

Jay

Sometimes just letting enough people know what you are looking for can be all you need. I hope I have as good of luck in my search john

Well things keep getting better. A former staff member at my school was visiting with her Uncle (who has ground 1/2 mile from my house) and she told him I was looking and then she gave me his number and said that he has a few spots I might be able to use.

I have tried looking and asking many times. But I guess you are right John, I just haven't reached enough people, at the right time!

Jay

2 of my 3 fields are rented from my neighbors.
The first is about 2 acres (cultivated) and has no irrigation. It also has an established 1/2 acre orchard there which I manage. I pay $400 annually.
The second is about the same size and also has some fruit trees on it, but not as many. There is irrigation available there. I pay $500 for that.

I've also rented farm land in years past and never payed more than $500/year for up to 3 acres with irrigation.

Hope this helps

-Mark

Jay I'm glad you found some leads. I think it can be really hard to connect with people with unused land that is in the right location and has irrigation. It took me several years and it was a fluke I met the woman who lived there. Last time I checked around here an acre was $200 per year but that was the bulk price. I pay $300 for my 1/2 acre with some storage and some utility use. They don't tell me how much to pay and I started with $20 or was it $40 the first year for 5000 sq feet? I had an offer of land to rent a bit further away a few years ago and I think it was an acre with irrigation and had been being used by a market flower grower. I think the rent was maybe $400.

Thanks Mark and Minnie, I appreciate you sharing the size, water availability and prices. In my mind, I was thinking $200-$400 would be about right.

Well I called 2 of my 3 contacts and I told them I would consider it, but I really am not interested. They aren't big enough. One place I thought they were going to offer me the big 2.5 acre field actually they were interested in renting me a 50 by 100 area.

The most promising place is next to the greenhouse. I stopped by, but the owners weren't around and I left my numbers to call. I will stop by tomorrow.

Jay

Talked to the greenhouse owners wife today. They are looking to sell, not rent it out. I rather doubt I could even think about buying it. My wife probably won't be in favor of it.

I am still going to look into it.

This post was edited by jrslick on Wed, Jan 7, 15 at 21:26

Well the property is officially out. I spoke to the owner finally today and they want $50,000 for it. Subtract 40,000 and I would have considered it. At that price, no way.

any updates?

Holy crap!!! How many acres? Land prices here are ridiculous w/good farmland going for $8-10,000+/acre. However, you can still pick up some ground under $2,000/acre.

Dead end, Failure, Not for sale, Not interested, I don't think it would work, way to small, Want to buy, not rent.

Those are the most common things I have heard so far, so I am back at the drawing board with no leads.

I might be able to rent 2 places, but they are both really too small and I don't think they would be worth the effort. Both are surrounded by large, mature tree rows. There isn't full sun and water is sketchy.

Still hoping for a miracle, but thinking I will just have to stay with my own space. My wife isn't much in favor of renting more ground, but I can deal with that later. She thinks it will take up all my time. I keep telling her, if I can get a larger space, I can grow more winter squash and melons. Both require minimal daily care. If there is water at this location, I can set the drip on timers and forget about it. Minimum hand weeding due to putting down plastic mulch, plant, till between widely spaced rows until they vine out, hand weed anything that is up close and harvest. She doesn't see it this way.

Jay

What will your crop rotation be? I can see doing squash, sweet potatoes and then what the third year? That is crops you can manage off site without much time. Maybe dry beans? Anyway, I know how hard it is to connect to people with land they aren't using. Keep driving around and asking people directly. The people with land are not going to be searching for an ad of someone looking for it. A lot of times they are older and have no idea anyone wants to use it.

Have you tried putting an ad on Craigslist ... in the Farm and Garden section, asking for land to rent?

Yes I have used Craigslist, Facebook Classifieds, I have asked my Online market customers, and our local radio station has a call in classifies buy, sell, or trade show live on the air. I have called or wrote in to that show 4 or 5 times in the last 6 months. I have directly ask many of my friends who are farmers who know many more land owners than I do. I guess the next thing to do is to break out the landplot book and start driving around. If I see something that might work, I will give them a call or start knocking on doors.

Or

Just give up and settle with what I have.

Minnie: Haven't really worked on a rotation. I am hoping I could get just one year at at a time. In a perfect world, I could do something like the winter squash, sweet potatoes, potatoes and melons. Then rotate that around. But with the troubles I am having finding a place, it maybe useless to even look at rotations.

I would worry about melons needing too much picking for off site growing. I have to pick melons, not watermelons, every fricking day in late summer. Sweet potatoes need absolutely no maintenance. Winter squash and potatoes just need bug maintenance. I have thought about this stuff before too. I had land offered to me 12 miles away for rent and had to think about what I could actually grow there. I had thought about market flowers and once a week picking and arranging flowers, automatic irrigation and not much weeding.

Do you have any worries about deer/wild life pressure on a piece of ground that won't have any regular human presence? I'm actually curious if anyone else has problems with deer in gardens that are not close enough to the house.

We have a few acres (has been used as a hay field/pasture) between the orchards that I have considered putting into winter squash & melons but was worried about the deer. I wouldn't have thought squash to be very appealing with the spines?

Deer love immature squash and blossoms and if they feel like it will also eat cucurbit leaves. If I didn't fence all my fields, the deer would be the only thing to harvest.....

I cover melons and squash until heavy flowering.

The deer are the main reason I have had to abandon the ground at my parents house (35 miles away). It was a pretty nice flat 1/2 acre (with room to expand), but once the deer found the winter squash, they were done. The first year I had more than I could sell and ended up tossing a bunch, the next year I was only able to harvest a 30 gallon tub full of acorn squash. The rest were stomped on and smash or ate off immature. It was so bad, that a relative set up a deer blind and shot (bow and arrow) a deer out of the patch during hunting season.

The deer pressure is also an issue that I am thinking about when I am looking for a place.

Brook: Didn't see your message earlier. By my calculations (several google earth acreage calculators) the area was about 3.3 acres. The owner claimed it was 6. I think he was off his rocker or the city put the fence in the wrong location!

Land prices are pretty high here too, we had an irrigated 80+ acres go for $12,000 an acre. The person bought it as he owned the land around it and the ground had a very "Senior" water well rights. This ground was about 1.5 miles from my house.

Still looking and hoping.

This post was edited by jrslick on Sat, Jan 31, 15 at 0:10

hi jay. have you considered putting up a deer fence around the portion of your parents field that you use?

To be perfectly honest, no I have never considered it, but I guess I should look into that.

This use to be old outdoor dirt pig lots. The grey thing is an old shed and the other grey thing is a concrete pad for pig water. It does have pig fence on all sides of it, the one end by the trees is the gate area, so it is kinda missing, but the rest does have posts and panels. I suppose I could attach some 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch pipe or rebar to the existing posts, then attach some poly deer fencing on top of that? If I did that, I could get by with 5 foot deer fencing on top of a 3 foot pig panel fence. That would make an 8 foot deer fence.

If I just used some pipe laying around at my parents house (they have tons) and I used the shorter poly fence, without labor, the poly deer fence would be about $500-$600. While that isn't too much, it is a chunk of change that I have not budgeted for.

Might have to look into this more. Still don't like the idea of farming 35 miles away, but the kids would get to visit grandma and grandpa and cousins much more often.

{{gwi:2127947}}

the deer fence i have is 7 1/2'. the only time the deer get in is when i forget to close the gate.

Strange. We bought our property originally to hunt deer. We are covered in deer, and they have never once bothered our cucurbits. The majority of our plantings (probably over 3 acres) are pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, and melons. Now if I plant beets, chard, or lettuce of any kind, watch out. I assume other forage is so plentifully available here that they prefer that over my crops. It's weird, but they even let my apples alone!!!

Have you considered an electric fence?? It might be cheaper than building a permanent fence. I've had success at keeping critters at bay w/the solar-charged kind. Then again, you need to be there somewhat regularly to fix it after they knock it down. Deer plow straight ahead once hit, but it only takes one experience to keep them at bay. The visible tape wire also reminds them of the experience. I've also just used clear monofilament fishing line strung up. They feel it but can't see it and don't like it at all.

I also know about farming from a distance. My farm is 30 miles away from my house, and I drive there every day. With our new building, I hope to cut out much of that driving.

It probably had more to do with the weather that year too. It didn't rain for almost 2 months and the grass didn't grow much and green leafy squash tasted better than dry dead grass. In that picture you can see the rows of round bales from the hay field. The last year I grew stuff there, we only got 10 bales off the same patch.

You mention you go to your farm everyday. If I made it to this farm once every two weeks, it was good. Probably the other problem.

Jay

Still looking, but not real hard. Put out a few feelers, but nobody is really biting. One person who did offer me a space contacted me again and I turned it down. One of my hoop building was larger than the space they had. It just wasn't worth it.