Raw Milk, Wide Rows and Odds and Ends
Raw Milk
We plan to start looking into what steps we have to take to start selling raw milk. We think there is a pretty good market here to tap into. It would compliment the eggs and grass fed broilers, make like a kind of "one stop shopping experience". I recently heard about a dairy north of here a ways that got a raw milk permit but I don't know any details. I'll keep you posted on what we find out.
Wide Rows
I told you all a while back about doing some wide rows in the garden as an experiment. Well, the wide row plants seem to be doing better than the single row ones. I knew we would yield more crop with a wide row, but figured the plants would not look as good being crowded and all. The peas in the wide rows are much bigger than there single row counterparts. I think this has to do with them creating a shad canopy which keeps the roots cooler. The beans have come up and look real good, the tomatoes are starting to grow well now as well. The tomatoes are in the rotten hay layers that we made this spring. Has any one else done wide rows?
Odds and Ends
Cold Climate Gardening is a Blog you may want to check out. At least those of you in cold climates might.
Here is your Farm Sermon for the week. The Hay Field is one a good one and quite appropriate for this time of year. Enjoy.
Vision Harvest has books I think my readers may enjoy.
posted by Scott M Terry @ 5:05 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Hi Scott,
I hope you can tap into the raw milk market.
For several years we have gotten our milk from a woman who lives nearby and has a few cows as a hobby more than a business. Twice a week we get 1 gallon. We leave an empty gallon jug there when we pick up a full one. We just go into the milk house and help ourselves to the full gallon on the days we know it will be there. As near as we can figure, this woman supplies 8 to 10 families with raw milk. All she asks for is a "donation" of $1.00. We typically leave a couple bucks.
I tell people where I work that my family drinks unpasteruized milk and they are amazed that I am still alive. Actually, I drink very little milk anymore. I have it on granola in the mornings sometimes and that's about it. My kids consume most of it.
The cream on the top is amazing. Sometimes 1/4 of the gallon is cream!
Best wishes,
Herrick Kimball
Moravia, NY
P.S. The latest issue of Farmshow magazine had a small article about leasing or selling shares in your cows. People pay you for shares in a cow. Then you take care of it and they get a share of the milk. Have you heard of this?
We always plant our veggies in four foot wide beds, and plant them pretty close together. Four feet is the widest I can manage - any wider than that and it's too hard to get to the veggies in the center without stepping into the bed.
I'm glad to hear you're looking into supplying raw milk. :-)
Herrick,
Maybe you know this, but the reason farmers sell shares of cow ownership is to avoid the legal red-tape of selling raw milk.
So, if Scott wanted to sell raw milk he could actually sell shares of cow ownership and the milk from those cows would then be owned by the shareholder. However, Scott could 'charge' room and board by 'keeping' some of the milk.
I think an ex-lawyer turned farmer though this up.
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