Podcasts Science Natural Sciences Farm Small Farm Smart Daily FSFS95: Growing Better by Growing Smaller - Going From Half an Acre to 500 Square Feet with Alex Bertsch of Epic by Nature Farm (FSFS95)

FSFS95: Growing Better by Growing Smaller - Going From Half an Acre to 500 Square Feet with Alex Bertsch of Epic by Nature Farm (FSFS95)

Published: April 19, 2017, 10 a.m.

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Today I'm going to be talking to another small scale farmer who's greatly benefited by growing smaller, not larger.

A few years ago farmer Alex Bertsch started farming on half an acre.\\xa0 Not a ton of land, but enough to make it hard for one person to manage.\\xa0 Add in the fact that the half an acre was being farmed part-time, and that half an acre seems a little more daunting.\\xa0 Then place that half an acre 40 minutes from where Alex lived, and you now have a hard farm to manage for anyone.\\xa0 It was a situation that was further complicated by growing a large variety of crops. \\xa0

Despite these first year challenges, Alex persevered and came out the first year ahead.\\xa0 Then he did something wise, he accessed the situation and he scaled back.

He cut his farm down from half an acre to just 500 square feet and some indoor growing space, and he moved the farm from the remote location to his back yard.\\xa0 Also, as part of his strategy he dramatically reduced his crops selection down to just salad greens and microgreens.

It was a big change of going smaller and simpler that changed everything for Alex.\\xa0 It made his life and his farm more manageable, and it's one that he continues to grow today.

Growing Better by Growing Smaller - Going From Half an Acre to 500 Square Feet with Alex Bertsch of Epic by Nature Farm.

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