From Zero to $110,000 in 4 Seasons (MFB 35)

0:00Welcome to Market Farming Basics. I'm your host Diego, D.I. IGO, and each episode I'll share everything that I have learned over the last 10 years of doing podcasts to help you create a profitable farm without breaking the bank. Each episode delivers actionable strategies you can implement right away if you prefer watching. Check out the video version on YouTube at Modern Grower Co. From zero to a hundred thousand dollars in just four seasons with only one and a half acres in one employee, Dean and Emily aren't just growing vegetables that cabbage throw farm. They're cultivating financial independence while working for themselves on something they truly believe in. Today we're telling the story of Dean and Emily from cabbage throw farm. They're located in Asbury, New Jersey. Dean is in his thirties along with

1:04his partner, Emily, and they're about six seasons now into their farming career with 1.5 acres under certified organic production. One of the ironic things about Dean's farm is the name cabbage throw. Where's that come from? Well, Dean's last name is Butta Cavoli. And in Italian, that means to throw cabbage ironically, they don't even grow cabbage on their farm. We're cabbage throw farm. I run this farm with me and my partner, Emily Stocker. We're essentially a one to one and a half acre market garden. We've got an acre in just vegetable beds. And yeah, we sell primarily to farmers markets, to farmers markets, both within about a 20 minute distance from our farm. And say it, we're in Western New Jersey. Yeah. In New Jersey, we have amazing alone, like we're called Garden State for Reason. And we're farming in a really famous agricultural valley called the Musconek

2:05Cong River Valley. Beautiful, loamy soils. Yeah, definitely we're blessed to be able to start our farm here and in this soil. Over the years, Dean and Emily's business has really shifted. Initially, they were chef focused, specializing in greens, but they've now moved to diverse market offerings. They initially planned on offering baby greens in root vegetables for restaurants. I mean, we started out trying to think like we were going to do salad greens and baby root vegetables to chefs. That was like the original business plan when we started out three years ago. That definitely didn't pan out. We couldn't get enough people to buy the amount of salad greens we wanted. So we quickly, quickly, quickly diversified and we're doing that more and more. So they now grow 50 different types of vegetables instead of just a specialty focus. They're most profitable crops. Right now are tomatoes and baby cut salad mixes. Today, this all happens on a farm that's 1.5 acres in size, but it didn't start there. It started small.

3:09Initially, they started their experiment and they're growing on three 50 by 100 foot plots in year one, doubling it in year two and then adding three different plots annually. At the time of this recording, they were growing everything in 30 inch by 100 foot beds and they are at 1.5 acres under production. For a year, I started with 15,000 square feet then added on another 15,000 square feet. I guess we've been opening three plots a year since year one and then this coming year we're going to be doing another three. When it comes to finances, they were very clear about establishing financial benchmarks in the beginning. They knew where they wanted to go. Their current gross annual income is around $110,000 at the time of this recording and they aren't focused on maximizing their acreage or their production on that acreage, but rather, they're focused on maximizing their income goals. We have more of a financial goal. Since day one, we were like,

4:13we want to be able to make a teacher salary. Like I always thought about that as being like $50,000 for me, $50,000 for Emily. So all together, we can be before taxes netting $50,000 each or $100,000 together, I'd be happy. Looking towards the future, they'll continue to expand specifically to reach financial stability and they'll use that teacher salary as a concrete, reasonable income benchmark of what they're going for. But we haven't hit that so it's like, let's keep growing. How do you produce all this income? Well, currently they grow 50 plus different types of vegetables. They went from that specialty focus to more diversification as I talked about earlier. They grow all the typical market gardening vegetables, but they also have some unique offerings. Finally, they're living up to that cabbage-throwed name and they're growing some different cabbage varieties on their farm and brassicas and onions have became a more recent focus.

5:14They maintain a mix of growing quick crops with storage crops and tomatoes and baby cut greens are still two of their most profitable things that they grow. Where do they sell everything? Their primary sales are through farmers markets. Some markets go into Pennsylvania but most are in New Jersey. They sell locally and densely populated regions that have strong consumer demand. The customer base has the income to support their premium local produce, their direct to consumer, which is what most market gardeners do and they're certified organic, which they think brings added value to their product in their market. When we recorded this interview, they were mainly focused on a May to Christmas sale season. So that created an intense workload throughout that time of year. Dean worked 65 plus hours a week during market season, which was May to November and they had one employee that worked 35 to 40 hours every week helping with

6:16various tasks around the farm. But it's not just all about financial sustainability when it comes to farming at cabbage-throw. They're also interested in environmental sustainability and one thing that they really believe in is improving their soil. So let's take a look at some of their soil management practices and philosophy. So we're big users of tarps. I really like the way the soil feels after you pull a tarp back. It's really nicely crumbly. It is way nicer than if you were to leave just bare dirt just hanging out. They use tarping a lot on their farm to control weeds and create superior soil tilf. Anytime they open up new ground, they heavily tarp it to take out any weeds that are there and get it going without the use of chemicals. This creates a nice crumbly soil texture when they pull back the tarp and it's superior to leaving the ground bare and exposed. It helps suppress weeds before bed preparation and allows for minimal tillage after removal. This is a critical first step for them in their bed preparation sequence.

7:25Early in their farming adventure, they tried to get a lot of their fertility for mushroom compost but later shifted to leaf compost due to pH concerns. They discovered that the time the mushroom compost that they were sourcing was very high in phosphorus and they observed the pH climbing year after year. This was causing some growing problems so they switched to the leaf compost which was much more mellower or closer to a neutral pH. There was a lower phosphorus count that helped balance their soils out. They're still dealing with nutritional issues in their soil due to that early compost use but they think they're working overall to solve that problem and they realize that using too much compost over time can be a problem so they're looking at reducing their overall compost dependability. When it comes to the nutrients in the soil, they really geeked out here, they've done the testing and they've really tried to refine things

8:25down to optimize their nitrogen application for their crops. Depending on the crop, we'll either give it 50 to 100 pounds of nitrogen depending on its needs. We really don't give anything more than 100 pounds of nitrogen just because we look at the nitrogen as to something to give it a nice boost and it's early stages to make sure the crop greens and sizes up pretty quickly. For nitrogen, it's either feather meal, blood meal. We really like crab shell meal. It's something that we've been really loving. It has a little bit of calcium in it as well. Plus, there's talk about the chitin in it. It feeds a certain type of microbe that will also, I think, prevent different types of funguses, I guess. I also just like the calcium because calcium is also a great sizing nutrient. It also loosens the soil so they also apply liquid forms of seaweed and fish emulsion to their fields for additional micro and macronutrients. When it comes to tillage, they've really tried to go the lower or minimum tillage amount, not no till just

9:26minimum tillage. They use broad forks until as shallowly as possible using attachments like the PDR or precision depth roller on their BCS. Yeah, season one, we started out just harping and opening things up with a pitch fork and a tilther, which we were kind of going into a very weedy meadow. We do that because I was very stubborn on. We're going to be making this thing a no-till farm. They like to use standard pitch forks on their beds rather than broad forks because they're much easier to manage. Given the size of them themselves, they go down one side of the bed, back up the other side and do very shallow tilling with the PDR on the BCS as a follow-up. They're not breaking up the soil, but really trying to incorporate residue. So think of this as a light top turnover versus some sort of deep till. They like to try and run exceptionally clean bed tops specifically because they use the paper pot transplanter for a lot of their crops

10:30and that tool works much better on cleaner beds. When it comes to soil management, there's a conflict between aspirations and reality. What Dean wants to do philosophically and what he has to do to make the farm work, he started with strong no-till aspirations. But the reality of weed pressure forced him to adapt. Similarly, he wanted to incorporate cover crops into his system, but production demands prevented it. He follows farmers like Daniel Maze and Brian O'Hara for inspiration. They're doing a lot with cover crops and crimping of cover crops in their no-till systems. So there's this balance of what I want to do for the soil and what I have to do to make production work and it's this tension between ideals and practical farming that often make it challenging as a farmer. One thing we haven't been able to do is implement a cover crop program and like the soil health there inside me has just been like it's upset me

11:34a bit. So we're hoping to expand to start putting old plots to rest a bit. I just understand the power of cover crops what they can do to kind of rejuvenate the soil. One of the other things Dean fully realizes is he notes the compost dependency that they have. There's concerns there regarding labor, cost, and long-term soil impact. There's a large physical tool to doing this. You're dedicating employee time to that. It costs money. All while having the question in the back of his head of our heavy compost applications, what soil truly needs? Yeah, we can't move away from compost it seems. And that's kind of the direction we want to go in is just using compost less. Just also because we're like we're noticing compost is eating into our bottom line and now we're thinking about getting attracted just to be able to move compost. And if it's not compost could they switch to something like cover cropping and make that work to reduce their inputs or transition

12:36their inputs from compost to broad and seed. Did you know if you're a farmer you can get your low tunnels paid for by the NRCS? Through a recently launched government program farmers can get between four and five dollars per square foot in reimbursement towards a quick hoops low tunnel system. That's free money to help increase production on your farm. Learn more about quick hoops in the NRCS program at shop.moderngrower.co or using the link below. In terms of enhancing their productivity and making their workload is manageable as possible for a small labor force one tool that they've really tried to implement is the paper pot transplanter. They've tried to use that beyond typical crops normally connected to the paper pot green onions salad mix that type of thing. They now use it for everything beyond the typical applications.

13:38Folks are thinking about the paper pot system. I would think about how it could work on any crop really. We've tried it on so many different crops and it always works. They've applied it to crops normally direct seeded by most farmers including root crops like carrots leafy greens and onions. With carrots like the way we've done it is we'll start them on heat mats in like in a garage that we start our stuff in. On the seven day mark we'll just transplant them usually we'll have like maybe 10 or 15% of them will be up but we'll go ahead and transplant them before all the carrots actually do come up to prevent the forking of this carrots. There are some questions that they have about the cost and is it too expensive but the ultimate benefits of reliability in ease of use outweigh any cost concerns for them in their context. We've struggled from day one to get good germination on anything we direct seed and so once we got the paper pot we kind of transitioned everything that was direct seeded to the paper pot chains and it was brilliant because

14:42everything just became reliable which is like the name of the game. The system has been invaluable to them and it's become a core to their system. It's tied to their entire production model. It allows the two of them to manage their acreage efficiently. Overall the systems become central to their operation. It's a key piece of equipment in all their systems and it's allowed two people to effectively manage all the acreage that they're dealing with. It's allowed us to grow and maintain a two person team for the past three years and yeah it's definitely that system that's allowed us to just be lean in our labor force which is super important. When it comes to using the paper pot transplant or they've done some innovating in terms of how they use it on their farm they have this plant young philosophy where they transplant most crops when they're only one to two weeks old that means one to two weeks after seeding in the paper chains they're transplanting them. One other thing I want to talk about the paper pot is plant the stuff young. Yeah I would say

15:47one to two weeks and our soils are just so giving that once we put them in the ground they just shoot up so for us it's really worked it really has and then you don't have the netting of the roots that you would. Often plants at this stage are in the true kind of lead-in stage before that first true leaf has developed. They found that young plants established better in the field compared to the greenhouse so getting these young plants into the ground in the field is imperative for the success of the crop. This ties into a philosophical thought that they have of getting plants into the ground early where they can start forming beneficial relationships with the soil and soil microbes is early in life is possible to ultimately benefit that crop in the long run. The big win for them when it comes to the paper pot is in enabling two people to manage their entire operation. It's been crucial to their labor efficiency it allows them to remain lean

16:48have just one employee working four hours a week in addition to both of them to manage their full 1.5 acres. This creates reliability and their system or direct seeding has failed. It's reduced time spent on repeated seeding attempts and it eliminates the need for intensive hand-weeding of direct seeded crops. To sum this might seem costly but for Dean and Emily this tool has been a critical factor in their businesses success. It's helped Dean manage his intensive 65 plus hour weekly schedule during market season saying physically able and mentally active without burning out. You don't work 65 hours a week during the season without looking for ways to become more productive so let's look at cabbage throws unique philosophy on productivity and managing production.

17:49They have a three whiteboard system for task management three separate wire boards in a dedicated planning space or big panelists whenever we get overwhelmed we kind of just say okay what is it we have to get done and we kind of have like a little space. I mean Emily it's just three separate whiteboards we kind of big fans of like looking at the overall picture and then doing the minutia pairing it down to what needs to get done right now and one of the most important projects that are within our control the first board captured the overall picture of farm operations the second focuses on immediate priorities the third tracks projects within their control all of this visual organization helps prevent feeling overwhelmed it's a simple system that provides both clarity and simplicity when the farm gets busy and a quick glance they can see both long-term goals and their daily needs and also gives them accountability it's very clear on a day-to-day

18:51basis who needs to be doing what and what needs to get done. If you're a follower of Ben Hartman in lean farming then one of the things Ben talks about a lot is waste versus money making tasks in cabbage throw has really tried to implement this philosophy on their farm. We are definitely you know heavy believers in like the lean system and thinking about what tasks are really wasteful tasks and what's ones are like money making tasks I think that's always helped whenever I'm looking at another grower and I'm like oh we should really be doing this and like is that really pushing the needle on our business you know not really. When you look at your farm think about this constantly evaluate which tasks directly impact the bottom line question whether activities push the needle on your business avoid getting distracted by what others and other farms are doing and focus on what you need to do for your farm focus your energy on the task to create the highest

19:56returns and do critical analysis of time investments to decide if it was worth the effort. Part of their success comes is a partner farm they're a partner both on farm and off in life and they have complementary work styles dean is the contemplative planner and Emily is an efficient executor I'm definitely more like standing over a bed of lettuce scratching my chin kind of pondering she's just like getting things picked off the list you need the person who's like more romantic about it and the person who's like yeah we got to get this phenyl out of the field now before will both these balance out the overthinking and the rushing and these different perspectives offer a more complete decision making process this is a partnership that's based on unique individual strengths that comes together and it one plus one is three

20:57type resolved we all know farming's not easy it's hard and one thing that they've adapted a cabbage soil farm is to embrace the suck there's going to be situations that are hard it's simple acknowledge it without dwelling on the negatives take a realistic approach about hardships while maintaining a positive outlook when the work gets difficult you have to like kind of embrace the suck is kind of what we say around here and just like understand it's like not ideal especially if like maybe we feel like we're not moving quick enough on certain goals it's like well what's preventing us from hitting those goals or doing these projects and just understanding like what's in your control what's not in your control and if it's not in your control just being very gentle on yourself just not going to the trap of negative thinking this approach prevents getting discouraged during setbacks and it creates mental toughness for the challenges that come with running a small scale farm this isn't ever easy but it's doable you just have to be able to overcome those

22:02valleys and ride them out so you can get back up to level ground and ascend to the peaks of success when you work 65 hours a week you got to realize burnout is a real thing and acknowledge it from the beginning things have to happen on the farm but they might have to happen at a much slower pace than you expect because your brain often moves much quicker than your body can so accepted expansion can happen at a measured pace knowing this you're going to create clear financial targets that provide framework for this type of expectation and don't compare your progress to other farms focus on what you're doing and where you're going and at the end of the day accept that farming is a marathon and not a sprint I think when like I first started you know doing like this thing as a business I thought it was gonna be a lot easier especially listening to like podcasts and

23:04things like that you hear people say like in my second year or third year we're doing this amount of business or whatever and for us we've found like a lot of roadblocks and I didn't realize how challenging it was going to be but I think that's kind of what drives me and keeps me in this space is just like everyone says it's a marathon not a sprint type of deal and so I kind of feel like every step is just it feeds me that much more everyone has a unique journey from where they came from to where they're going let's take a look at Dean's personal drive and his vision of the future of cabbage throw farm yeah man I mean I was very environmentally minded since I was a kid my favorite heroes were like steerer when type of deal like I'd watch like a lot of animal planet a lot of discovery channel yeah man I was all about that kind of stuff yeah it got really into thinking about global warming for the most part so it can be in truth in high school and from now I was like telling people I was going to be a conservationist went to school out west

24:05and studied environmental studies yeah my first semester I took a local sustainable foods class was taught by this awesome beekeeper yeah man that was 2009 2010 I've been still doing the same thing ever since this connection to the environment is what drew him into agriculture and it's through agriculture that they look to make their impact on societal issues I really believe in the power of farming like I really look at it as the answer to so many of our societal issues from an economic perspective social perspectives environmental perspective that's what we're kind of like the bigger picture we're working towards is that this farm is helping to build like a greener economy so as they grow their farm they're going to make sure it aligns with their interest and their original intent to change our community be the change that you want to be in the world is one of their guiding tenants well all this might be inspirational for you use this as just that

25:06inspiration not a map or a plan for your future as dean says the whole idea of think about what's appropriate in your own context kind of like writing your own chapter in this farming thing that we're all doing learning as much as you can from everybody and then just kind of taking the things into your own system but very very quickly dropping things that you might have thought were a good idea but are very very much showing that they're not working for you in your system and then also like trying to think about like why is this working in someone else's system and why is not working in your system and we're kind of getting to the point where we can understand why certain folks in this farming space are doing certain things and what's appropriate for us think about what's appropriate in your own context write your own chapter in this farming thing that we're all doing learn broadly but implement selectively putting little things into your system to try and make an impact where you are always question different approaches is something's not

26:11working for you but it's working for somebody else why if something's working somewhere else and you want to do it why do you think it'll work for you just because it's worked for them consider your unique climate soil market instead of blindly copying practices everyone has a unique context if you try and just copy dean or somebody else that's being successful odds are a lot of it won't work because so much is different for you your market and your individual context at the end of the day if we want small scale farming to make a change and make an impact like dean and Emily a cabbage or a do it has to be financially incentivizing you have to be able to make a living farming or we can't do it so dean emphasizes paying yourself first and having financial discipline try and save for retirement do what you would normally do with a regular job don't

27:16feel pressured to put every dollar back into the farm don't be always thinking what can we buy with all that extra money that we have at the end of the year save it's important if you have to grow your business slower that's okay be cautious about buying things be more frugal and cautious versus somebody that's aggressive and spendy prioritize financial sustainability just as much as you might prioritize environmental sustainability because you're not going to make that impact on the environment if the finance side isn't taking care of what do you think has led to your success as a farmer stubbornness maybe I guess yeah just not quitting just understanding that yeah this is a long process you're going to have challenges not quitting is a key factor in making it in the long run it's a long process it's a marathon not a sprint like dean says but if you have a passion for it

28:19it'll help you get through those difficult times for dean this is something that he absolutely loves doing and there's nothing else he traded for in the world I'm just I'm in love with farming so I've heard a lot of the growers on Diego's podcast talk about it there's nothing else I'd be doing you know if anything like feel like things are sucking on the farm it's like well what else would you be doing probably be reading about farming yeah I mean I think you have to have the passion the story of cabbage throw farm is amazing farming small scale new jersey on 1.5 acres making a hundred and ten thousand dollars a year with just three people their philosophy of small simple and sustainable has kept them guided on the right path and dean's persistence along with this partner emilys get to itness his what's made them successful if you want to learn more about cabbage throw farm check him out on instagram and if you want to learn more about great farmers like

29:20dean stay tuned on this channel or check out some of our archives if you want to be featured in a video like this leave me a comment below thanks for watching until next time be nice be thankful and do the work