How to Grow $300,000 of Food on ONE Acre, in ONE Year - Small Axe Farm || S2 Ep 12

Totally.

You know, actually, you know, if you refer back to like Joel Salatin's book, Folks, This Ain't Normal, what you guys are doing was probably the most normal thing that has been done across every century, except for the one we currently live in.

Like, that's

what we just used to call life, exactly what you're doing.

And then all of a sudden something changed.

And so...

I think that's interesting.

I'd like to zoom in on the farming aspect now.

Let's talk about kind of as you learn to transition and tend this ground and grow from this hillside, the southern facing slope.

What did you immediately observe and how did you start structuring and designing this? how you're going to have space to grow.

Let's see, I think we found one like kind of partially flat part.

Like it was just this little, and it wasn't flat at all, but it was just flatter.

And we're like, oh, we'll have our garden there.

And that actually is like where our first gardens were.

And we still, that's still part of our farm.

We call it our house gardens, but they're just part of our farm now.

But it was steep enough that we, like, had to – we, you know, we had – we terraced it with, like, little wooden terraces just by driving in stakes and putting a board behind the stakes.

And so we just kind of, like, started terracing or having that idea in our head.

And then – As we started to expand our gardens, there was kind of another flatter area at the top of the hill where we put all our storage stuff.

We didn't have water up there at that point, but we grew corn and potatoes and squash, some stuff that really didn't need water, or at least at that time in the climate history didn't need water.

The climate's changed dramatically from when we started farming.

But then when we started to kind of grow our gardens and need more space, and the only space available was a steep hillside, there was kind of like three choices.

One is do like smaller hand-built terraces, whether they were stone or wood, you know, hire or rent a big machine and make terraces on the hillside.

Or the third option, which we ended up going with, which felt a lot better to us, was every bed is its own terrace.

You know, so every bed is kind of this flat bed and then it drops down and there's a depressed pathway and then the next bed.

Totally.

You know, actually, you know, if you refer back to like Joel Salatin's book, Folks, This Ain't Normal, what you guys are doing was probably the most normal thing that has been done across every century, except for the one we currently live in.

Like, that's

what we just used to call life, exactly what you're doing.

And then all of a sudden something changed.

And so...

I think that's interesting.

I'd like to zoom in on the farming aspect now.

Let's talk about kind of as you learn to transition and tend this ground and grow from this hillside, the southern facing slope.

What did you immediately observe and how did you start structuring and designing this? how you're going to have space to grow.

Let's see, I think we found one like kind of partially flat part.

Like it was just this little, and it wasn't flat at all, but it was just flatter.

And we're like, oh, we'll have our garden there.

And that actually is like where our first gardens were.

And we still, that's still part of our farm.

We call it our house gardens, but they're just part of our farm now.

But it was steep enough that we, like, had to – we, you know, we had – we terraced it with, like, little wooden terraces just by driving in stakes and putting a board behind the stakes.

And so we just kind of, like, started terracing or having that idea in our head.

And then – As we started to expand our gardens, there was kind of another flatter area at the top of the hill where we put all our storage stuff.

We didn't have water up there at that point, but we grew corn and potatoes and squash, some stuff that really didn't need water, or at least at that time in the climate history didn't need water.

The climate's changed dramatically from when we started farming.

But then when we started to kind of grow our gardens and need more space, and the only space available was a steep hillside, there was kind of like three choices.

One is do like smaller hand-built terraces, whether they were stone or wood, you know, hire or rent a big machine and make terraces on the hillside.

Or the third option, which we ended up going with, which felt a lot better to us, was every bed is its own terrace.

You know, so every bed is kind of this flat bed and then it drops down and there's a depressed pathway and then the next bed.