When I was roughly 12 years old my parents and my aunt and uncle pooled their resources and bought an acre in West Farmington. The soil was heavy clay and was on the alkaline side of the spectrum. It was probably less than two miles from the shore of the Great Salt Lake. The texture of the clay soil was very similar to what I find in Western Oregon where I live today.
I recall several different gardens we grew on this property. The first year, I remember witnessing and participating in the process of roto-tilling roughly half of the one acre. That was a big garden. The spacing was generous. I recall growing tomatoes, potatoes, corn, more squash that we could shake a stick at, onions, and carrots. There were probably other things as well, but that is what I recall. I recall my uncle's father teaching me how to plant corn without a corn planter. He would take a shovel, push in into the ground a few inches, push the shovel forward, and place two seeds behind the shovel about two inches deep, then pull the shovel out. I recall the hard work it took weeding the garden and the abundance of the harvest. In many instances, we harvested way more than we used. After I was out of college, one summer we lived in Farmington. I managed the garden. We grew lot of stuff. I was in charge, so felt responsible to make sure things were cared for properly. It was a rewarding experience. In the fall we harvested dozens of pumpkins that we companion cropped with the sweet corn. In our little garage, we had probably three dozen pumpkins that we used for Halloween, gave away, and ultimately threw many away.
The second year after we got the farm, I somehow convinced my Dad to get a couple of pigs. We built a pig pen, after the style and idea from The Have-More Plan. We got the pigs and fed them extras from our garden, pig weeds (that is a real name), and feed from Smith's Feed on Main Street in Bountiful. One experience we had was attempting to take the pigs to the Davis County Fair to be a display of sorts. The pigs were not cooperative and were chased around and around and around, until they were finally corralled back in their pen. Needless to say, they never made it to the fair. The water that we had was the pressurized irrigation water that was turned off at the beginning of October. So we had a tight timeline to raise the pigs to harvest weight. One of the neighbors down in West Farmington ran a portable abattoire, so he took care of the harvest. I recall eating the excellent ham and bacon. My Dad commented, "This is the best ham I have ever eaten!" And so it is with well raised meat.
My Dad often tried to figure out how to generate a supplemental income using the resources he had available. One effort was to raise earthworms. He had several beds of earthworms that he would grow and multiply, and harvest. The earthworm beds included feeding the earthworms lots of prepared organic matter, including what I recall was primarily horse manure and chopped hay. Over the years, these beds became highly fertile, much different than the surrounding soils. I remember helping my Dad with some of the worm bed feeding and preparation. Ultimately the worm beds turned into a valuable place to grow raspberries.
During my college years, my Dad, some of my brothers, and friends grew an acre of raspberries on the Farm. I did a fair amount of financial and market analysis to see if it would make sense. It appeared to make sense. We installed irrigation and trellising. We planted an acre of raspberries. We kept it weeded and fertilized. The second year and beyond we harvested raspberries. We were harvesting roughly 10 flats of raspberries, six days a week for about four weeks, starting in mid-June. The harvest time was chaotic. The berries needed to be picked early in the morning as they became softer in the heat. We had to cool the berries as best as we could in a couple of refrigerators we had. We would take and fill orders in the Farmington area. I recall dealing with customer complaints and praises. Ultimately, the raspberry project was a great project that taught me a lot about small farm entrepreneurship. As I moved away and others got busy, the berry bushes became chopped organic matter that added fertility to the Farm.
The Farm was an experimental plot for me. I had many hands on experiences there. Some meeting with success, and some becoming learning experiences in failure. In part, it was experiences at the Farm that gave me confidence to experiment and know that I could succeed in gardening and farm endeavors.
If I look at Google Earth, I now see that there is a big house on the Farm with a small horse barn and horse training/exercise ring out back. It doesn't appear to me that there are any food crops on the farm. That makes me a little sad.
