Land

Land is the foundation of farming. Is is the capacity to feed yourself via crops. Land grows the wood lot which offers wood to heat your home, water and food. Land provides an environment of growth and development for your family. Farmers, gardeners, yes all of us love our land. As I have grown older, and perhaps wiser, and I have moved around the country several times, I realize that the land we own is truly just ours for a short time. We are stewards of the land we own. If time will last, our land will surely outlast us.

My interest in land has grown as I have wanted to enlarge our family garden enterprise. Without tillable land, we can have interest but may be limited in our production potential.

How much land can you work effectively can be calculated by the number of people working the soil, the type of crops, your environment and soil type, how intensively you will grow crops, and what machinery will assist you in the farming process. One farmer friend in West Virginia estimates that one person can handle from one to two acres of vegetable garden without mechanical equipment. Techniques can be employed to improve efficiency, and over a period of years, weed pressure is decreased.

For those looking for land, the key criteria are: 1) room for crops in tillable land and room for nutrient fields of cover crops and crop rotation, 2) wood lot with enough trees to sustain your wood heating needs, 3) available water.


As I have looked for land, I have added these criteria (from a list made in 2010):

• 20+ acres
• Water available
• Land suitable for food production
• Wood lot suitable for heating and cooking
• Remote, with lower immediate population pressure, but have outreach potentials
• South facing land for crops, north facing for fruit trees
• Opportunities for nature / hiking / camping in the greater community
• Some elevation change would be preferred for a basement walkout, root seller, and water gravity flow
• All acquisitions be dept free
• Scenic vistas would be enjoyed

I do not know what to suggest for the quantity of these three root criteria. A large part of the equation is how many people you will be having work in your enterprise. For an independent family farm, by current guess at a minimum would be 20 acres. A promise from inspiration: "God can bless twenty acres of land and make them as productive as one hundred..." 5T 151.3 The context of this quote is that we need to guard against amassing or hording land in greed. Other references balance this with the encouragement for schools and sanitariums to obtain as much land as possible as a buffer around the institution. Some of these recommendations specify into the hundreds of acres.

One thing is clear, we do not want to make our land our idol. We should ever be ready to heed God's call or public coercion to abandon it. If we amass a fortune of time and wealth in land, surely it would be hard to leave it. In these last days of earths history, we should heed the Biblical counsel to "remember Lot's wife."

I know of a CSA farm in middle Tennessee which comprises over a hundred acres, supports four families plus interns, and of this total they have under 10 acres in tillable production. Another CSA farm that focuses more on large machinery has 1200 CSA customers, and utilizes around 150 acres of production. So the volume parameters are very diverse, depending on the situation and plan.

In upcoming posts, we will deal extensively with amending your soil to achive a perfect balance of nutrients and physical and biologic qualities for growing excellent crops. It should be noted that land weighs in at 4 million pounds at the top 12 inches of soil, which is your effective gardening depth. With this kind of volume, it is impractical to think of changing a soil type. You may be able to nudge the organic matter in your soil, but you will not be able to change a clay soil to a sandy soil of vise versa. It is simpler to purchase land suitable for crops than to work in vain to try to change it.

Some encouragement from inspiration related to your land:

"In God's plan for Israel, every family had a home on the land, with sufficient ground for tilling. Thus were provided both the means and the incentive for a useful, industrious, and self-supporting life. And no devising of man has ever improved upon that plan." MH 183.3

"Many do not see the importance of having land to cultivate, and of raising fruit and vegetables, that their families may be supplied with these things. I am instructed to say to every family and every church, God will bless you when you work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, fearing lest, by unwise treatment of the body, you will mar the Lord's plan for you." MM 296.6

"To parents who are living in the cities, the Lord is sending the warning cry, Gather your children into your own house; gather them away from those who are disregarding the commandments of God, who are teaching and practicing evil. Get out of the cities as fast as possible. Parents can secure small homes in the country, with land for cultivation, where the children will not be surrounded with the corrupting influences of city life. God will help his people to find such homes outside the cities." RH July 5, 1906 Par. 30

 May we claim this last promise for ourselves. If you are longing for land for cultivation, and to live in a rural environment, this promise is for you to claim. God will answer!