wrote:
Howdy!

My wife and I are embarking on a "semi-retirement homesteading"
adventure on 13 acres on the central Texas Gulf Coast.

The land has not been in agricultural production in at least 15 years,
this being the time period we've owned it.

When last it was, it was in watermelons. In fact, it is textbook
watermelon land, since it is fine deep sand.

Our reasons are both economic and philosophical. Although we have no
for-profit aspirations we aspire to eventually cultivate at least 10
acres. The reason for this is so that in 5 years we hope to be
elegible for an agricultural use property tax exemption.

My wife loves to garden. Without doubt she'll be the one taking the
lead, but I am also enthusiastic. We have a dinky Farmall Cub tractor,
a 3 row garden plow, and a disk.

We are about to place an order for some seed stock from "Native Seed
Search". We expect to concentrate on "the three sisters" corn, beans,
and squash. But we're eager to companion plant some other things as
well.

As the project evolves I'm sure I'll have lots of additional questions.

But for now, the burning question is: How big of a plot to plant?

An acre, which, if I'm not mistaken, is 220' x 220', contains 44,000
square feet. Therefore, one acre in corn is 44,000 plants! Is this
about right?

If even approximately correct, it would appear that hand harvesting a
single acre of corn would be a daunting challenge for two people who
are not mechanized beyond the aforesaid dinky Cub tractor.

I will genuinely appreciate some of the experienced souls in here
providing me a reality check on what our realistic goals should be.
Since our entire 13 acres is already cleared and is all sand, we
thought a reasonable long term goal would be to plant 3 acres each
season, then move over. Thus, every fourth year we'd come back to the
original plot.

Without asking you to ..er.. "take us to raise" would you please orient
us? If it's to point us to a book or a web site that's more than fine.
In fact, I just ordered "5 acres and independence" but it hasn't
arrived in the mail yet. It may very well have the answers I'm
seeking.

Finally, and on the assumption we plant a manageable size, can corn be
intercropped with peanuts? I do not think our soil is ideal for corn
since it is somewhat shy of humus. But I'll wager peanuts would grow
like the dickens.

Any other suggestions you care to toss out, especially as to companion
planting, will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Vernon

Hi Vernon!
I live in Lufkin, about 100 miles to the north of you, so our growing
conditions are similar. We already have squash, tomatoes, peppers,
cucumbers, broccoli, potatoes, onions, turnips and cabbage (several
varieties of each) that are harvestable. Our sweet corn is already
making tassels and our beans/peas should be ready in about a week. They
were planted in March, so I don't think there's time to wait for the
seed order. Consider buying plants form your local feed store, they also
have seed. They will have varieties that are known to grow well in your
area. Or you may still find plants at Lowes or Home Depot.

We have two gardens, the one in the back field is about 3/4 acre, and
the one out back of the house is about 30' x 50'. The larger one has
soil like yours and smaller one has richer soil. Our corn is doing well
despite the sandy soil. Alternating two rows corn then two rows of beans
has made the corn picking much easier. We use the one out back for often
picked items such as tomatoes and peppers and the larger one for less
picked items such as corn, okra and beans. I don't often help in the
garden, due to physical limitations, and my husband said he couldn't
have managed so large a garden without a little larger machinery than
you have available. Also we don't rotate our plots, but only specific
crop locations within the same plot.

Some other things to think about is watering, storage and equipment to
make processing your harvest a little easier. Last year we had little
rain throughout late Spring to late fall. We had to pump water from our
pond to water the large garden several times and still lost most of the
corn but the other crops did well. After giving away oodles of veggies,
we still had to purchase a 2nd freezer and wound up with both freezers
full. We found that an electric pea sheller is indispensible, saved us
countless hours shelling peas/beans. They are kind of expensive, but
worth every penny. Our was ordered thru the local feedstore and took
about two weeks to get here.

In our county growing hay and selling it qualifies as agricultural use,
so if your land has been in grass all these years, check it out, you may
already qualify for agricultural exemptions. Raising hay is much easier
than raising a large garden. Around here you can hire someone to cut and
bale it and sells for $25+ per round bale and it can be cut several
times during the growing season. Then you could limit the size of your
garden to one more suited to the size of your family.



Best Regards and Happy Growing!
Alana


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