Foothill Farming Blog

It is all about having a system

      When it comes to growing food for a living, you need to be really efficient. The best way that I know how to increase efficiency is to develop a system. Once you have a system, you don’t have to spend a lot of time figuring out how you are going to do something. On my farm we have systems for almost everything, from working up the soil to picking the leafy greens. Growing vegetables requires a lot of repetition: there are always seeds to start, crops to transplant,...

Zen and the Art of Sheepherding

Over the years, I've come to realize that one of the principles of working or moving livestock is that I must move slowly to go fast.  Every time I get in a hurry to get something done - loading sheep in the trailer or moving sheep through the corrals, for example - the job takes much longer than it would if I had the proper patience.  The animals seem to sense my frantic energy, which makes them frantic, as well.  Early on in my sheep ranching adventure, I was drawn to the...

Volunteer Training April 3rd!

We need your help in promoting locally produced food in Placer and Nevada Counties! UCCE Placer/Nevada is working to promote specialty crops at the farmers markets by conducting tasting/sampling events and by distributing produce cards and vouchers to farmers’ market shoppers.  These activities are supported by a Specialty Crop Block Grant from the CDFA. In January and February of this year, we held 5 tasting events at the Auburn Farmers’ Market.  During this time, we...

Tool Building Part 2

In my last post, I wrote about building an excel-based tool that helps farmers assess costs of production, taking into account direct and overhead costs.  I initially took on this project because, up until November, I had not come across any tool that effectively helped a farmer to assess costs of production for a particular crop.  In the past month, I have come across two resources that aim to do just this: the Veggie Compass, and Richard Wiswall’s enterprise analysis...

What to Buy First: Capital Purchases for New Livestock Operations

I help to teach a class for aspiring farmers in the Sierra foothills.  Invariably, we begin talking about when a new producer should purchase his or her first tractor.  This seems to be a “guy” thing – the male of our species can’t conceive of a commercial farming enterprise without a tractor!  For most start-up crop farms, however, a tractor shouldn’t be the first capital expenditure.  Things like deer fencing, irrigation systems and hand tools...