Re: How to live off 30 acres ?

Posted by The real Hal/WA on August 09, 2007 at 14:55:03 from (66.45.175.118):

In Reply to: How to live off 30 acres ? posted by arod on August 09, 2007 at 11:55:04:

I have a cousin who lives in Western Montana who makes his living growing hydroponic tomatoes in his greenhouses. I don't think he has more than about 5 acres total, but has been growing the tomatoes for more than 20 years. He is retired from the military, and his wife works as some kind of secretary somewhere, but they seem to do OK with the tomato farming bringing most of their income. But they sure aren't getting rich though.

My cousin works many hours a day during the season, which is from about February until mid-November. He heats the greenhouses with a wood fired boiler when they need to be heated, and has to use lots of lights in the Fall when the days get short. He does almost all of the packing, but I don't think he transports it any more. Most of his accounts are supermarket chains and he has said he can sell every tomato he can produce. They are super high quality, and sell for high prices.

It took my cousin some time and a bunch of money to build up his greenhouse business and make a success of it. He always worries about disease and has to use chemicals to prevent insect and disease infestation. Every so often, he gets visited by law enforcement, since people think he is growing marijuana. He lets the cops look around, but only asks that they be tobacco-free, since some diseases that can cause trouble for tomatoes are or can be carried by tobacco.

I don't know if growing tomatoes would work as well elsewhere, but my cousin found this niche market for the extremely high quality product and has done well enough with it to keep doing it all these years. But the keys are finding a product in fairly short supply and in high demand, and that will sell at a fairly high price. And of course BE LEGAL! Good luck.

Replies:

• Re: How to live off 30 acres ? Krumholz 16:52:31 08/09/07 (0)

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