You Won't Believe What Can Be Built on a Quarter Acre Plot of Land!

[@brandonmanawat5194]

The only guy that can shoot a video in a greenhouse with loud ass fans running full tilt and still have clear sound

[@offgridcurtisstone]

Shot gun mic makes such a difference. Thanks for that comment. Glad to know you guys are digging the sound quality. It's super important for me as an ex-audio engineer.

[@OurRootboundLife]

Curtis, I love your enthusiasm and your willingness to share your knowledge. You are inspiring. I love learning from you!!

[@KatLovelandVoiceActor]

Thank you for all this free content! I know how much work these can be. I am pondering on doing this in AZ. Thank you for your inspiration and your advice.

[@cherrylynn7173]

I love this! Very helpful. I’m looking at buying a little bit of over a quarter acre. I thought it be too small but I’m hopeful now that you e made this video

[@nealcummings1803]

ok , thank you that helps,was very undecided on how to start these beds,i know clay gets hard here in Texas,didnt realize the drainage issue. I have heard that raised beds need more water, in ground not as much, but I can't drain the soil,i can however water it .thanks for the input.

[@MrClimbhi]

Thank you for these videos, you have changed my life for the better, and I respect you a great deal.

[@fmsm88]

Thank for sharing, guy! I got your video inspired! Im gonna make the same in my land. I have bought recently 1/4 acre of land (in Spain) too and and Im very exciting about it!

[@jamesberntson]

That crop of sunflower shoots looks great, I bought the same seed lot from Mumms after you mentioned it in an earlier video and the quality has been on point. Thanks for the lead!

[@Kojen2]

This is golden info thanks.

[@jimclaire7996]

Curtis, my daughter bought me your book, also the book of Jean-Martin. How much would your digital mode set me back, ( or hopefully, thinking positively, ahead)?

[@DeerParkFarmstead]

Great vid. I'm on a 1/4 acres but can only work with 16 25ft beds. Production is on its way up. Sales streams are improving little by little which is fine by me. I'm working on some different crops. Some work some don't. All part of the game is suppose.

[@RevampedOutdoors]

So with this inter-planting deal, do you need to add extra nutrients throughout the tomato growth cycle to make up for uptake and loss from the lettuce?

[@one234569and10]

Curtis - I am 49 and have knee issues where I can not get up and down easily, but interested in farming as a retirement career. What is your feeling about raised beds in comparison to what you are currently talking about? Thanks! Love the videos.

[@offgridcurtisstone]

They can work, but it's a lot more cost. Also, hard to run machinery through them, but anything is possible friend.

[@marshwetland3808]

Sounds like a good situation for growing micro-greens.

[@donaldleggett]

Curtis, I d/l the Quarter Acre workshop. Great content. My only question, can we get the presentation that you used? Would make a great reference.

[@patfarmer5371]

1. Would you plant out the entirety of your 1/4 acre with caterpillar tunnels if you had the option? 2. If you didn't already have pre-existing tunnel infrastructure would you choose the Farmers Friend LLC caterpillar tunnels for all your greenhouse needs (exception being your passive solar greenhouse)?

[@offgridcurtisstone]

+Pat Farmer yes and yes.

[@conradgreenLA]

This episode is FIRE.

[@echosquest]

Who do you go talk to to get these contracts to base your sales off of? Just start cold calling / cold knocking stores and restaurants? Or do you find out what they need then work out the contract after you get an idea of what you can supply them?

[@MartinPHellwig]

Hey Curtis, I wonder if you could give Brian from WTF some hints how to do volume normalisation on his videos, because yours are great. His videos would definitely become even more enjoyable to watch with some minor music/voice normalisation tweaks.

[@offgridcurtisstone]

He'll figure it out. I got enough people to look out for now.

[@steelhorses2004]

Is the $80k number mentioned a gross sales number or a net profit number? If gross then can you ballpark a gross profit on that revenue?

[@offgridcurtisstone]

I always talk gross.

[@leebirchenough9189]

US or Canadian $'s?

[@shogunkosku]

Lee Birchenough US & Canada currency is almost even, changes daily by pennies but in US can buy Canadian dollar for $.87.

[@lisat9707]

shogunkosku Canadian dollar has stayed recently at about 75 cents on the dollar that's 75 percent of what the US dollar is worth. i5 hast been at 87 cents for a few years now since the cost of oil tanked

[@leebirchenough9189]

ok thanks but im still curious as to which he means. when he says 80,000 if thats canadian then thats 100k usa right?

[@mikeash3294]

You're awesome I've been following for a while and just wanted to say I've got to come to your event in QC Arizona! I've learned so much from your videos, thank you.

[@kobewade8709]

Say Curtis If you do not mind or know off hand what are the dimensions of your property. I am trying decide & find out my bed sizes & number of them I can fit into 3 acres.

[@squidpickle4361]

On Yotem's plot (sp?), there is a section of curved beds which would seem to make maintenance tougher. Is there a reason why he chose to curve them instead of straight like the adjacent sections?

[@offgridcurtisstone]

+Squid Pickle pretty sure because it's the corner of a slight ridge.

[@platficker]

For reference, a quarter acre is also approximately 104 foot square. This video answers a question I have had, namely: What is your yield from total area to planted bed area? It looks like you are averaging about 2,000 linear bed feet on a quarter acre; times 2.5 feet wide gives 5,000 square feet of planted bed area. This is about a 50% yield on available space. Since your beds are spaced at 10 inches or so (and definitely not 30 inch paths) I find this a little surprising, i.e. a low yield. Edges and ends - are they using up that much space? I have a 20x40 allotment for 800 square feet; with a fence I lose some at the edges. I use a 2x4 foot frame for my standard little beds, and get about 65 beds. 65x8 = 520 square feet out of 800 for 65% yield. I guess I am surprised you don't have a higher yield, because I know how much you value your space. On a related note, I know from your background how you appreciate a good metric. To me, it seems the obvious metric is value yield (either gross sales or profit) per standard bed per week. I calculated this once from a chart from Jean Martin Fortier's garden, and then ranked the crops by that metric. It seems to me that this metric provides a summary of all the considerations in your CVR. A few of JMF's crops were surprisingly low on this measure, but that may reflect the need to have a broad variety for the market or CSA. The other metric is of course "UTILIZATION." This is the number of beds you manage to keep in production each week over the season. Suppose, for example, you have a 25 week growing season and 100 beds, for a total of 2,500 potential bed-weeks. You can measure your effectiveness keeping them in production. Similarly, your use of season extensions increases your available bed-weeks during the growing season. Nothing fundamentally new here, just a different way of looking at the numbers. i.e. I am sure you have been all over this for years.

[@wildrangeringreen]

an acre is 43,560 ft2... so .25 ac is approx 10,895 ft2

[@marshwetland3808]

Yeah, but I think the point about 102x102 is a good way to visualize it. Kinda like two city lots.

[@keithcooper2012]

regarding the orientation of beds. Have you noticed any yield differences for beds oriented east-> west vs north-> south due to crops shading each other out?

[@offgridcurtisstone]

+Keith Cooper never noticed that.

[@growyourownfood293]

Whats yur thought on growing peppers on an urban farm? are they profitable/ high value crop?

[@offgridcurtisstone]

Depends on they're demand. Dead low value for me.

[@marshwetland3808]

Check out is vid on marketing and killing it at the farmer's market. Ideas on how to assess what's the next hot thing you could be selling, in your context.

[@MrAtreties]

Hey Curtis, I was looking at the numbers you provided in this video and something doesnt add up and I'm hoping you can clarify. If you expect about $800 over a season in a 25 foot bed and you have 1972 linear feet, that's. 78.88 chunks of 25 feet. Multiply by $800 and I get $63,104. I'm not sure where you're seeing $80,000 on that much land. Are you counting microgreens in there or something?

[@offgridcurtisstone]

It's not exact. Both of us do microgreens however. But, in my $80 on a 1/4 acre video, I outline how to do it without.

[@KatLovelandVoiceActor]

Do you give all the crops you pull out to your compost provider?

[@seasales.]

Hi Curtis; Does the Digital tools include templates of your spreadsheets?

[@offgridcurtisstone]

+Sea Sales yes

[@93VIDEO]

I love your Advises .... Bravo from Paris ...

[@dobe762]

Hi Curtis, my local organic farmer tells me he can only sell about 6, yes only 6 lettuce in a week!! have you found that there are areas where folks just don't eat so much salad leaves? or does any other growers reading this find they have poor salad sales? And how does one go about re-educating the folks ;-) Oh and another question please, which particular Salanova do you grow, I managed to get some seed this year, they are still small plants at this stage but looking forward to seeing how they do compared to my heritage saved seed. TIA

[@offgridcurtisstone]

+dobe762 it's different everywhere. I always tell people to sort out their market place before they plant anything.

[@nealcummings1803]

thanks for the inspiration,im going to start with 1 of 3 acres I have. question,my soil is clay, very flat,should I go raised beds, what amendments to add to make it more suitable to grow? thanks and this question goes out to anyone.thanks

[@BacktonaturelivingCom]

Yes, raised beds on clay soil or your plants will drown in water...Just use compost, Turkey fertilizer and true bark mulch...no shredded trees since it pulls nutrients from your plants as they decompose...

[@JourneywithMAMAZURI-hb8nr]

I subscribed. Good content

[@jdaemon33]

Question: With regards to the Digital Tools package, if your not physically shipping anything and the payment is through Paypal, why are you requesting all of the personal data ie: address, phone etc. before allowing the purchase to go through?

[@offgridcurtisstone]

Ya, it's stupid. It's just what my site does. I'll mention it to my web guy to get rid of it. We're not putting you guys on any sort of list.

[@Gabriel-fb6et]

@Urban Farmer Curtis Stone when you say $1,600/bed do you mean revenue or profit? Also, what's your average margin?

[@BacktonaturelivingCom]

Gross not net

[@windaddiction]

Hey this is my farm 1/4 acre... 25 75 foot beds!

[@katherinetaylor5323]

Great video, what zone do you need to garden that way? I live in 3b.

[@offgridcurtisstone]

Pretty much anywhere.

[@BacktonaturelivingCom]

In that zone you may want to have low poly tunnels within Caterpillar tunnels to season extension...

[@katherinetaylor5323]

Thank you

[@BacktonaturelivingCom]

BTW - each layer you place around your plants, such as caterpillar tunnels and poly tunnels will give you approximately an additional 10 degrees of warmth. That will help you decide how many layers you will need based on your outside temperatures.

[@katherinetaylor5323]

It sometimes reaches -40c here with much higher windchills. I live in AB, Canada.

[@juliaus]

4 crop outs in Canada? Maybe in Kelowna but not very many other places in CA are like that, here in Alberta its not safe to plant anything till after May long as it almost always snows or says frosty till then.

[@offgridcurtisstone]

4 crops in Kelowna. I never said Canada. It's a big country.

[@juliaus]

Your lucky to live in a nice corner of the country :) I misheard you, my mistake. I only wanted to illustrate how different the climate can be a stones throw away. Relatively easy fix for me though Id need more m^2 to plant and maybe a decent green house to start early/grow all winter.

[@AhmedAbdulla2020]

Great videos and valuable content. Love your initiative. One small note, your voice is low compared to the music you add in your videos. I find myself raising the volume after your intros, and running to lower it again when the loud outro rushes in. I guess you want your video to be exciting with the music, but it actually keeps me edgy. cheers

[@andrewwalton6535]

Can someone help me work out this math with a quarter acre which is 10,890 Square feet. A little under 2,000 linear feet of beds at 2.5 feet wide is what Curtis mentions. I get 5,000 square feet which is a little under an 1/8 acre, an acre being 43,560 square feet. I share the same plot size so I’m eager to know but my calculations tell me it’s an 1/8 acre. With path space it would be around a quarter acre is that what’s included in your calculation?

[@jameswais7735]

How much do you make profit

[@marqueswilsonn]

I wonder if it’s 80k NZ dollars or Canadian

[@FORREST123100]

How much yield do you get out of your lettuce in a 50 ft. bed on average?

[@offgridcurtisstone]

+Forrest Huntington depends on the variety. We get at least 80 lbs from 3 cuts.

[@flowergrowersmith449]

What's the minimum path width do you reckon you can get away with Curtis?

[@offgridcurtisstone]

+FlowerGrower Smith 10 inches.

[@marshwetland3808]

I bet it depends on how big your feet are, too. Mine are almost 12" long and everywhere I'm bumping my toes on things designed for normal feet.

[@snooter28]

What is the profit of this 80K though? I keep seeing you and other people talking about X amount of revenue but I never see what the net profit is. Are you doing 80 grand but spending 60?

[@jerrysnelling8665]

Hunter--I can't speak for Curtis but I'm a rural market farmer who is growing very similar to what JM Fortier is scaling up to do. The profit margin should be approximately 60% per $100,000. I started with 2 acres and I'm now growing on 10 acres. The profit margin has stayed fairly consistent no matter what the acreage. This is all based on earning 100-125,000 per acre

[@offgridcurtisstone]

It changes year to year. I used to run at an 80% profit margin, but now I run lower because I have more help on the farm. Our margin now is about 60%.

[@snooter28]

wow! I can't believe it's that good! Thank you so much for being willing to share!

[@RWCSNZ]

An acre is how much you can plow in one day with a horse and plow. How long would it take with you hand held cultivator?

[@wildrangeringreen]

an acre is an imperial measurement that equals 43560 ft2. the amount you can cover in a day depends on tiller width and how deep you are cultivating. for my .5 ac market garden, I can deep till (6-7") the entire patch in about 3-4 hours (using a 24" wide tiller). with shallow tilling (1-2"), I can turn the speed up and cover it in about 1.5-2 hours. If you are using a wheel hoe or something like that, you aren't going to go as deep, and it will take considerably longer to do (think 6-8 hours for .5 ac). I quickly realized that the time savings and quality of till more than made up for the cost of fuel (1-1.5 gal to deep till entire .5 ac) and cost of the rototiller ( used Troy "horse", $750), so now my hand tools (exception being a few rakes, hoes, and shovels) collect dust.

[@mostafabadou6789]

can this be done on US zone 9

[@offgridcurtisstone]

+mostafa badou this can be done in zone 4!

[@PulseRELOADED]

i wanna do this

[@leewhelan1111]

Of all the links you have there, no where to get your book

[@offgridcurtisstone]

+Jester Black on the urban farmer website in the store.

[@stephenwire]

The amount of production you get from a tight space is pretty amazing. That said I don't know why you try to fudge the numbers to make it sound even more impressive. The farm in New Zealand you said the greenhouse is 40 feet and the strawberry rows are only 50 feet. Really? First the greenhouse is larger than 40 feet, using the ribs there are 16 sections and in his video he fits 3 1/3 trays between each rib. You estimated the trays at 35cm or 13.8 inches. Meaning the space between the ribs is about 46 inches. Multiply 46 inches by 16 and you get 736 inches or 61.3 feet is the length of the greenhouse. The strawberry rows are considerably longer than that. Again you both have impressive setups all the way around. Just be more realistic with entire amount of land being used. Paths, borders, fences...etc all count as space used as well even though nothing is growing there. The size of the space used is my only complaint. Other than that I think your channel is a awesome and a great resource. I appreciate the time you put in to making the videos.

[@offgridcurtisstone]

+Stephen Wire you're assuming a lot there. We actually down play our numbers. I won't even tell you how much our farm makes now.

[@stephenwire]

The measurements came from your own comments in the videos, so I'm not sure what I'm assuming. I have watched a bunch of your videos but so far I haven't seen where you describe the actual lot sizes. That might be what is causing confusion for me. If I missed that I apologize. If not can you make a video that describes the physical size of your lots and then how much is utilized to production? You utilize every square inch you can get, which is very impressive but there is always some areas that can't produce such as right next to a fence or between green houses. It is obvious that you are doing very well from the fact that you are expanding and building.

[@alexwadsworth3607]

So... i have 120 - 25' beds that are 30" wide. That's 62.5 square feet per bed without the walkways, 87.5 square feet with the walkways. So I have 62.5 x 120 beds= 7500 square feet total without walkways and 87.5x120beds= 10500 square feet with walk ways which is .24 of an acre. Your calculations: 1980 x 2.5'= 4950 square feet with no walkways which is .11 of an acre or 1980 x 3.5 =6930 with 1' walkways which is .16 of an acre. I'm not sure how you guys came up with your square footage of production space. I guess by your your calculations I would be farming 1/3 of an acre or more. Just wondering how you did your math because I thought I was farming a 1/4 acre this whole time.

[@offgridcurtisstone]

+Alex Wadsworth I explained right in the beginning of the video how I calculate how much.

[@joeduggan6323]

Alex Wadsworth Your math is basically correct. An acre is 43560 sq ft. 1972 ft. x 2.5 = 4818 sq ft. or .11 acres. So CS is even more efficient and could retitle '80k on a tenth acre'

[@alexwadsworth3607]

Joe Duggan , thank you. That's what I was just saying a second ago, lol. if anything it makes it look more profitable.

[@mgfons]

I know of an herb that fetches over $1,000 per lb.

[@Futebol_atual]

ginseng of course. That takes 8-10 years to grow

[@daevid21]

RuiMiguelGaming he means weed dumbass

[@daevid21]

Michael Fons yeah dawg same

[@IAW888]

David Stevenson lol

[@loveskinas3352]

David Stevenson pretty sure he was being facetious Sherlock!

[@shawnueda8909]

LOL... Wanna go broke on very small (micro) farm, grow something that takes lot of space and time. Broccoli and Cauliflower not to mention cabbage. yup! over 3 square feet of space (0.33 square meters approx) and wait around 100 days to harvest for what? so around 2500 heads of broccoli in a season for 1/4 acre (and I'm being very generous) Oh lordy... That's another way to look at it. tomatoes, cukes, peppers are good money makers especially if you can grow them up a trellis for the first two. And if you have a market, herbs such as basil makes good money. except we just can't get our act together for the basil market. :( But we make a killing on cukes, pepper and of course tomatoes. Lettuce and baby greens do make good money. So for those still thinking about it, look at the needs of the crop in terms of space and in time and see if the gross sale of the crop justifies the space it needs and the time it needs. If you want to go broke, most definitely, grow corn, potatoes, giant winter squash, asparagus, rhubarb and wheat. something just as bad is cane berries and blueberries. Remember too that lot of backyard gardeners grow what else tomatoes and summer squash. So you'll be competing with the backyard gardeners. Tis why we stay away from things like sweet million, San Marzano tomatoes, raven zucchini etc. One thing we do in our greenhouse, we even plant in the walk-way. We plant the walkway with something really short transplant-harvest time and plant areas next to it with something that takes time. Harvest things like radish in the walk-way then harvest full size lettuce 3 weeks later from the "beds". yeah tempted to walk on the radish to check on the lettuce don't you. Anyway, good info about total cost of crop. And congrats on your new baby.

[@aleksandrabissani567]

The bads are 3 feet wide. Don't you have walk ways beween them? why are they excluded from the calculation? Farm is the whole land used for production, and processing to be ready for sale. the way you are utilizing the land play great role in te resoults .That's why no till gardening makes sense when the re is no much landfor your disposition. You might use small tiller, but not a big tractor on 20 small lots, because you don't waste the land for the neccessery turns arounds. On top of it there is a space between greenhouses or plastic tunnels, space for packeging, washing, drying, storage, coolers atc. So really the whole production is much more then the land with thw roots of your plants in the ground.

[@entertextimagebelow]

^ | | | ? Dafuk dis?

[@BacktonaturelivingCom]

Beds are 30 inches, not 3 feet. 10 inch walkways.

[@daveowen5583]

Darn it... I grow corn! Nah corn works as a high value crop for me b/c I have 3/4 acre, works out to be about $60 per hour in earnings. I wouldn't do it on 1/4 acre, as you say it's about context.

[@marshwetland3808]

Yeah, I guess 3/4 acre of corn isn't a market garden. A market garden has a variety of things. But if it works for you, that's great.

[@ryharpon]

haha "CORN... DON'T EVER GROW CORN"

[@skiaddict08]

hey yoooo

[@jindrabartonec5259]

American metric system is awfull xD I dont even know what he said :D

[@ChezGra]

Jindra Bartonec a quarter acre is almost 1012 square meters. Does that help? The metric system is not used in North America, not in the USA that I know. Maybe by the military or NASA. Hope it helped

[@nope3263]

Canada is a country in the North American continent that uses metic.... It's that big country right above the USA.

[@jindrabartonec5259]

ChezGra thank you !

[@jindrabartonec5259]

Nope Of course i know where canada is ... but i didnt know those :feet,inch,acre :D Im from czech republic not USA

[@nope3263]

I was replying to the person who said that metric is not used in North America. Which it is: in Canada and Greenland.