Fifteen Months In: A Hadley Farmship Update

The Hadley Farmship is fifteen months old. The Hadley Farmship is on course. The Hadley Farmship just well may succeed. Followers of the farmship know that we are an experiment in relocalizing the food chain. The defination of what is success has been evolving through the months. The good news is that my expectations for the production ability of our little half acre permie site is increasing. The on the ground realities we have experienced over the last fifteen months have been encouraging.

My original model posited that a childless or one child couple could raise enough food to feed themselves, turn over 300 dollars a month in food stamp purchases back to the issuer as their “taxes”, and make 4600 dollars a year cash. Folks, I can confidently state that these numbers are doable. My model has the preconditions that the property and the Urban Farmship operators health and fire insurances are costless.

This is Ruth and mine’s current condition. Ruth’s pension covers our health insurance and our costs at the condo. My Mother and Father in-law (God bless ‘em) have provided the land. My unemployment money currently feeds us and takes care of the farmship bills. When my unemployment runs out in thirteen weeks, the farmship will than need to fullfill these costs.

My unemployment is 265 per week. My proposed three hundred dollars a month of food stamp purchases as an Urban Farmship’s tax contribution, equals 75 dollars a week. Lets round that sum to 350.00 a week in sales. This amount would allow us to live modestly. Currently, through The Community Exchange, we are selling about 65 dollars a week on average. I estimate our production to be about 25% of max right now. We are in the ballpark. My original goal of 4600 per year was too low, I am now hoping for maybe 15 grand a year.

When I actually sit down and do the numbers, it always sounds a little more discouraging than it is. So instead of looking at the numbers, consider this. Yesterday, Ruth, Kenny, and myself were able to carry 120 dollars of produce to the car in one trip. Three armfuls of produce is 120 dollars, I can easily envision carrying nine arms full to the car. 360 dollars in sales per week can get one of these farmships to fly. (by the way, we sold 85 dollars of that 120)

Now I know there are the naysayers out there saying, “you haven’t deducted your costs, those are net sales, not profits”. You are right, however, we don’t have costs. Well we only have minimal costs. Water, seeds, and fuel. That is it, we purchase nothing else. We pay no wages, we buy no fertilizers, herbicides, nor pesticides. I compost and vermicompost local waste streams as our only growing input. I am currently growing my own chicken and rabbit feeds, so when I expand to micro-livestock, I am ready. This is not a capitalist model, we do not wish to spend X and get X plus some percent back. No, this is a way where simply your work and your love of our Mother planet will provide what you need.

More about the water. We get twenty flood irrigations a year. This costs about two hundred dollars. I do not exagerate here, I have crammed literally two hundred yards of organic material into my tiny plot over the last year. Anyone who has sat there and been amazed that you can pour bucket after bucket of water into a compost pile and not have it run out the bottom, they know how much water can be absorbed. So my soils now are one big giant sponge. When I get irrigation it is stored in the organic matter, and released slowly to the plants. I always mulch heavy. Ruth gets tired of hearing me say, “ no exposed dirt, no exposed dirt.” These practices have reduced our need to irrigate. We seldom water with city water from the tap. Maybe six times all last year did I water the entire garden with city water. Our water bill is about 50 dollars if I do not need to water the garden with city water and about 90 when I do. So it costs 40 dollars a whack to water the entire garden with city water. The flood irrigation makes it possible. The money for all the water comes to about 75 dollars a month, but that is my living water, and sewer, and trash pickup as well.

What are we growing? You may be asking. Well, right now it is leaves. We had 27 large zip-lock bags of various leaves yesterday, gourmet greens, spring mix, cilantro, and collored and radish and beet greens. Greens are really a great product. Nutritionally, fresh greens are off the chart. I graze as I am working. I have not had as much as a sniffle this winter (knock on wood). They also fill you up real good. They can be continuously harvested and they grow back. I am amazed at the amount of lettuce we get from our small patches of, Lolla Rosa, Q’s Special Melody, and Gourmet Baby Greens. The seeds come from Botanical Interests, and were given to us by AZHS, thank-you.

We have three succesion plantings of spinach, carrots, beets, fennel bulbs, and various greens which will be appearing at the market starting next Saturday and thru the spring. Tomatoes, chilis, peppers, eggplants, and tomatillos are started both indoors and out. Our winter squash from last fall are dwindeling, we have about ten left. Folks, if you don’t mind me saying so, these magdelena squash are the finest staple available at the market right now. I really do not care if they sell, because I like them so much and am happy to eat them. I would like to share my passion for this food, we will dispay a couple each market untill they are gone. If you want to experience true local eating, come on down and buy one of these gorgeous babys, bake or boil it, and dig in. They are delicious, packed with beta-carotene, and so easy to digest. This food makes me feel good. We will be planting magdelenas twice this year. Once in march for halloween pumpkins, and again in July for the monsoon garden. Next year I will have many, and I will care if I sell them.

PEOPLE: I am so blessed by the people in my life. My wife Ruthy has been most gracious about being dragged down this crazy road. My son Kenny, and his good friend Sid are helping at the farmship with an eye towards possibly expanding or commencing localized food production endevours. They both volunteer at The Community Exchange. Speaking of the exchange, Ron,Chip and Bill, your efforts are invaluable to The Hadley Farmship. Cindy and Sally and Swen, from The Downtown Phoenix Public Market have supported us unfailingly. Of course we cannot forget our “chiefs”, Jen, Wendy, Anne, and the rest of the AZHS steering committee. I am grateful to all for their efforts supporting not just The Hadley Farmship, but the movement in general.

The most important people are the customers. The industrial food chain will make you sick. The industrial food chain is polluting the planet. The industrial food chain has concentrated political power around its controllers. All of these costs are not reflected in the price that is paid at the supermarket. Without people who understand these things. Without people who understand that paying 5 dollars a pound for homegrown leaves is a bargin when all costs are considered. Without the customers who value what we are doing, we will fail. Thank-you to everyone who has purchased our produce, we love growing it for you.