Farming - What Would Your Dream Farm Be?

Discussion in 'History and Culture' started by The Rhetoric of Life, Jun 12, 2021.

  1. politicalcenter

    politicalcenter Well-Known Member

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    I don't really know that much about apples. Down here the big thing is peaches. And they have to be pruned and sprayed. I was told to spray just before or after dark to save bees.
     
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  2. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    I said British instead of English because I've heard of Welsh Wine too, growing grapes in wine vineyards in Wales too.
    IDK the technical aspects of the bureaucracy there.

    I don't think it floods enough to harvest rice fields here, but we do have more rain nowadays too.
     
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  3. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    I've seen novelty lemon trees and orange trees sitting in green houses looking all small and ornamental, but in what conditions do those need to flourish that perhaps we haven't got in England?
    Is it because UK's not warm enough or moist enough with a dry heat to grow lemons and oranges that we don't grow those on mass?
     
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  4. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    Is there any farms called Down On The so they'd point to my farm and say that's Down On The Farm.
    I think I've found a name I like.
     
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  5. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    Fruit trees need pruning to encourage a good crop.
     
  6. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    You can but you need an orangery. The Victorians used to grow citrus fruits indoors in heated greenhouses. Not cost effective to do commercially.
     
  7. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    I think it's more to do with our cold winters.
    You can grow small fruiting citrus trees in pots but you need to move them indoors in the winter or they will die.
    https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/guide-to-growing-citrus-plants-in-the-uk/
     
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  8. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    I'm watching the sheep getting sheared just outside my window.
    They're a bit overdue. It's been really hot recently and they've all got a full fleece.
     
  9. politicalcenter

    politicalcenter Well-Known Member

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    We call ours Tiny Acres.
     
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  10. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    Too much effort to grow in the UK then, best suited for a farm in another climate.
    Well, the list of things you can grow and raise in the UK should be, I guess, even if I can't make my own lemon curd or wax to produce a crop to sell on mass.

    I still want my own sugar, but in this climate, rather than sugarbeat because sugarcane doesn't grow here, since my farm'd have orchards anyway growing apples and plums, I'm thinking fructose from the orchards of the fruits we can grow here in the UK with relative ease because of the natural climate. I could sweeten my apple juice with some fructose from plums and apples and black currants even.
     
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  11. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    You shouldn't need to sweeten your apple juice if you pick the right variety.
    We have a cox here on the farm which makes good apple juice and cider.
     
  12. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    Well sugar for the apple pies with flour made from the wheat...
    Also, to make and sell apple pie filling in jars or in fructose glazed doughnuts as well as pie crust dusting for the apple pies.
    Even if the fructose isn't needed for the juice.
    Apple sponge cakes that'll have red apple or green apple based jams and sauces that need sugar, hopefully I could use fructose from the fruits instead of growing sugar beet for my Farm Shop's sweeting needs too.

    How does a farm turn their produce into food?
    Do you just send them the apples other fruits you'd have if they ordered the crop and then you in return order some fructose from your specific harvest and load (to make sure it's your crop they're selling you) or what?

    How does that work out? Getting things to sell and consume made with your crops for your farmer's market shop and own food and beverage needs?
     
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  13. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    There's a real shortage of farmers growing old variety long straw wheat for use in thatching.
    We specialise in a couple of old strains here, New Harvester and Square Head Master. The threshing is labour intensive but the straw fetches £550 a ton which is 3 or 4 times what the wheat fetches.
    Thatchers are crying out for straw especially since the last two years have been low yield due to very wet conditions when it was drilled.
     
  14. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    This was us threshing by steam power last summer.

    That's me in a green t-shirt pitching bunches of straw in the background.
     
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  15. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    If I wanted to sell cider and bottled snakebites and larger brewed with my produce, would I have to distill and brew it all it myself or what?
    Would I have to pay, will they pay me? and I only pay for a batch to have my label on it, or what?
     
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  16. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    Same with every other thing I'd ever raise and grow too tbh; how do you have it processed for yourself to sell and use if it's something like apple brewing and cake baking.

    Don't read this spoiler unless you've finished Clarkson Farm.
    How did Jeremy Clarkson get flour from his wheat and lamb chops from his lamb?

    How do I get a bag of frozen gluten free chips from my potatoes or a bag of crisps?

    I can cook and boil ect but that's about it.
     
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  17. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    You brew beer. Distillation is the process for making spirits such as whiskey.
    Beer making from scratch is quite a complex procedure.
    You'd have to grow and harvest your barley and then malt it. Malting involves germinating the barley under strict conditions and is quite an art. This releases the sugars needed for the yeast to ferment into alcohol. You would also have to grow hops (or pick wild hops) to add for flavour and its preserving quality.
    Brewing involves steeping the malted barley to dissolve the sugars at 150F in a mash tun and then adding yeast to begin the fermentation process. Secondary fermentation takes place in the barrel and gives the beer its fizz. The hops are added during the secondary fermentation.
    It's a skilled process from start to finish and if you get it wrong at any stage the beer would be undrinkable.
     
  18. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    Clarkson sold his wheat to a grain merchant. To get his own flour for baking he would have to take some wheat to a mill and pay them to grind it into flour or buy himself a small mill and grind his own.

    Potatoes don't contain gluten so all chips and crisps are gluten free.
    Gluten comes from grains such as wheat or rye.
    You'd need a processing plant to make chips or crisps.

    The sheep would have to go to a registered slaughterhouse and then to a butcher to be cut up.
    You can do the butchering yourself if you have a clean and sterile environment which has passed inspection by EHO but you are not allowed to slaughter your own livestock.
     
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  19. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    But if I wanted to grow and raise to help feed Britain, and find a commercial buyer, could I also get them to make my own supply like how JC got his flour from his wheat sale?
    Maybe get my own fructose and flour to sell to a cake factory and order stuff to be sent to the farm?
    There's a cake factory near me in Thornton Heath, I could sell them flour and sugars and eggs and fruits and preserves and fillings from the farm idea and order from them for my own farm shop too maybe, IDK.
    Same with beer, I'd like to sell for the market, but get them to make me some instead, and outsource it at cost but also sell it at profit, and then sell the processed goods with my own process at a markup to cover cost and fill my shelves and taps.

    I don't even know where my local abattoir is but I know I'm not slaughtering and I know I want to sell its meat, so, I assume beers and ciders and soft drinks, find a refinery or brewery to buy make a deal where I buy back from my own produce to say with a straight face was grown locally, I sell to them and pay them their dues for my own supply and labels to and sell and consume the processed goods at my farmer's market and in my kitchen (as well as the fresh fruits veg and eggs)..
     
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  20. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    I want to outsource it like Clarkson since this is dream farming.
    From meats to brews to refining, but, in theory, does this country work like that?
    Can I sell raw produce for processing and get my own supply back to sell like flour to the cake factory and fructose from my fruits and even find someone makes jams and sauces here and get my own jam and stuff and from my own fruits and fructoses?
     
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  21. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    The trouble is every time you outsource a process you are adding costs to your product and you'll end up with an uncompetitive end product. I think you need to decide whether you want to be a farmer or a manufacturer.
    Farming your arable crops and raising your livestock plus maintaining your equipment is already a full time job without doing all the processing yourself.
    To do what you want to do would take dozens of staff and cost a fortune in specialist equipment.
     
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  22. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    Well... I guess 1000 acres could allow for a mill and a bakery and a place to boil up preserves and things... But as for refining the fructose I want to use and butchering, no ty, same with my brewing, I want to sell hops and barley etc to real breweries, and order my own beers and ciders and snakebites from my own produce.
    I'd want to sell blackcurrant juice and apple juice too, I guess I could do that on the farm and boy bottles, but... Brewing and fermenting I'd outsource like my pork products and have them come back to me ready to sell and use.

    I want to be able to sell plum sauce and ducks to ChinaTown and its cash and carries around London and to restaurants too, maybe I should add somme spring onions if I'm going to focus on that market, and also ginger and garlic.

    I wonder if soap made from pig fat can be fancy or exist? I wonder how to make a duck or a pork oxo cube/bullion cube?
    What butcher/plant do I ask to produce those or how would I even begin?

    As for the crisps, I'd want to sell to a crisps making company and ask for some back/buy some back and then have them bagged and flavoured, I want to grow for food production, invest in small scale production outsourced (and sell the products along side the fresh on my farm and eat it too.
     
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  23. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    A small local mill will grind your flour and return it to you in sacks. You would then have to weigh it up into small bags for you to sell on to the consumer. Doing that would add a lot of value to your wheat but it would have to be high quality or it is only going to be used for animal feed.
     
  24. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    Yeah, I'd want the best price for everything and the best grade so I'd have to get the red tractor cert' for it.

    I don't think I'd want to raise enough meat to sell to anybody but myself and personal customers, but as for grains and fruits and veg, I'd sell to the fruit and veg packers in London or to the brewers and refiners and order what I want like the sugars and juices and brews ect.

    As for niche crops, I'd just open the pumpkin patch up to the tourists and let them have a pumpkin patch, where they can pick a pumpkin, take it home, take pictures in the pumpkin patch with the pumpkins, but some car park/parklot with ample parking and coaches and decorate it with some Pumpkin pageantry and dress it all up for the public.

    and I'd look at growing my own seaweed/nori and selling that if things go well.
     
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  25. Montegriffo

    Montegriffo Well-Known Member

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    I think you'd have to find small local producers to make your products for you. There are still plenty of local bakeries which could make bread and cakes for you, Same with local micro-breweries but I think finding a maltings that could keep your barley separate would be more difficult.
    Jam making is something you could do yourself with minimal equipment but I think you would have to compromise and buy the sugar. It would still be your own jam if it was all your fruit.
     

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