Thinking Outside the Farmer Box

I kind of mentioned this in my last blog post, but decided to go a bit more into it in a stand-alone post. I’ve added a new project that isn’t technically “farming” but is going to be an income producing thing for the farm. I hope. For the last few years I’ve tried to find something to raise or produce that would let the farm bring in enough money to be completely self sufficient. We want the hubby to retire early, and the farm needs to pay its own bills for that. The problem is, I’m in a fairly rural area where there are quite a few of us farming folk, but only so many customers. So I’ve tried to find my niche.

I tried to look for things that people wanted, but other farmers weren’t selling. There were almost zero rex rabbits in the state of WV. So I brought some in and started breeding and selling them. When they became more common in the state, I had to begin culling much harder and have gotten pretty decent at producing nice rabbits, with a wait list. When I’m not test breeding for cataracts, the rabbits can financially support themselves.

Chickens are everywhere in my area. So selling eating eggs made me no money at all. The last time I did a cost analysis, it takes me $4 to produce a dozen eggs (food, water, bedding, time caring for birds) but I can only get $2/dozen in my area. So it wasn’t cost effective to raise chickens to sell eating eggs. So I invested in incubators and hatchers and now sell newly hatched chicks to people. If I hustled a bit more, and went to more swaps, the chickens would support themselves, but I’m ok with what I do make on them, in exchange for the ability to have fresh eggs for my own family.

The one I can’t seem to ever break even on? Crops. Animals are a bit harder for people to raise, but almost anyone in my area can grow a small garden if they have a mind to. And for the ones who don’t want to? Lots of the local farmers in my area have high tunnels and they produce quite a bit of quality veggies and fruits to sell. I don’t have, or want, a high tunnel. I’m growing in just a couple dozen raised beds. Most farms are also family operations meaning there’s usually more than one person working in the fields. I’m by myself in the farming stuff. So I can’t compete with farmers who are picking truckloads of veggies to take to the market.

For the last few years I’ve tried to find unique crops that nobody else is growing. I’ve tried raising heirloom veggie starts that you can’t find in the local greenhouses. I’ve done ok, but not actually covered my costs of producing the things. So I’ve continued to try to come up with something I can grow that will let gardening at least break even. And now I’m hoping I’ve finally found a weird niche that will let me do that.

I’m growing gourds. Birdhouse, bottle, dippers…all the kinds of gourds I can find. Then I’m turning them into “fairy houses”. I won’t have to worry about getting them picked and sold immediately because I’ll be drying them. If I need to miss a market day, my “crop” isn’t going to rot. And unlike fresh veggies, I can ship them in the mail to customers anywhere in the US with very little headache. I will have to get approval by the market board to sell them there since they aren’t a fresh veggie, but I don’t think that’ll be a problem. And if it is, I’ve already started an Etsy shop so no worries.

While thinking about doing the fairy houses, I realized that will also let me make the terrariums I love, without having to keep them all myself. I can shop for vintage glassware, which I adore, design beautiful magical themed scenes inside, and then instead of filling my house with a thousand little plantings, I can sell them to other people to enjoy. This lets me thrift and grow things, and NOT make my house a vintage and plant hoarding mess. Shipping them will require some planning, but I think it will be doable eventually.

As I started making fairy themed decorations for the terrariums I stumbled on something else I’ve always loved doing, have a bunch of supplies for, but never had a way to tie it into the farm. Making jewelry. I enjoy making cute things, but mostly just for family and friends, cuz I don’t wanna set up at craft shows all the time to try to sell them. I realized if I shrunk my terrarium decor, I could make wearable terrariums, and from there the fae themed jewelry ideas just poured out (much to my poor husband’s dismay I’m sure 😂).

Because they all tie into the fairy theme (which I also have always loved) I don’t have to separate them into multiple businesses and individual finances. And because I grow the stuff for the houses and terrariums here, I get to keep them under the Elbon Mill Farm business umbrella. I did give it all a separate brand name, The Fae Farm, just so that my chicken or rabbit customers who aren’t into that stuff don’t see it all the time and get annoyed. But financially, I can keep it all one single entity.

So, while I would’ve never guessed I’d add all these things in to my “farming”. I’ve somehow managed to make them make sense. And they’re all things I love doing. I don’t intend to bring the fairy stuff to the Elbon Mill Farm pages very often, but I know some of my followers do love that kind of stuff, and I wanted to encourage y’all to think outside the box to find ways to make money from your own farm doing stuff you already like doing. Every penny counts in farming, and enjoying what you do is really important.

If you do love fairy stuff or are just interested in watching to see how this whole thing ends up playing out for the farm being self supporting, I’ve made Instagram and Facebook pages for The Fae Farm and an Etsy shop where I will slowly be listing items for sale. So go check them out and share them with any of your friends who love fairy or mushroom or even nature related stuff. I will also be adding a subdomain to the website when I get a chance to sit down at a computer, but for now, I’m creating a small mushroom army, filling all my vintage containers with moss, and cleaning gourds like a crazy woman! 😂