Moving from the city to a small farm is the right choice for many families. Is farming life new to you? Some families mistakenly romanticize life in the country. Farming the land is hard work and involves financial risk. Smart novices consider not only their agriculture interests, but also their financial resources, attributes of their property and benefits of the crops they choose to plant.

Chances are you're growing a vegetable garden for the first time this year, or are expanding the varieties of vegetables you're planting in your existing garden. If so, we have the seeds and other things you need to get started and be successful from planning to canning. New this year are pages on our potato and onion varieties. There are also many heirloom variety vegetables listed throughout the guide.

On January 20th, Mike Peacock and Dr. Jody Wade from Southern States Cooperative conducted a Cattle Care Webinar. It provided insightful information on beef health and nutrition during winter calving. If you missed the webinar, you can catch it again right here!

Apples are good for you and the health benefits are numerous and include anything from lowering bad cholesterol to reducing the risk of cancer. An orchard is a lovely way to grow this tasty and healthy fruit, but it will take planning and time before you’re harvesting.

Beyond a regular supply of nutritious fresh eggs, you may want to sell your eggs to others. Such sales can yield profits for you and a quality, locally produced product for your customers.

Winter Wheat can be more profitable as it requires fewer inputs than spring wheat and it has a higher yield potential; the winter wheat harvest for 2009 for South Carolina averaged 55 bushels per acre, a reduction of just over eight per cent from 2008.

It’s a big decision to purchase a horse. With some research and thoughtful consideration, the experience can be a positive one for your family and the horse.

Chickens are a fresh, nutritious source of home grown meat and eggs. The birds also provide teens and children with exhibition animals for county fairs. Chickens can be raised in rural, suburban and urban settings. However, check your local laws and zoning ordinances to see if keeping chickens is allowed, and if so, under what rules.

Although raising peanuts is a tillage intensive farming operation and the peanuts must be graded by the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service and certified as safe before they can be sold, peanuts can be, and are, grown on small farms in the U.S.

For the hobby or small farmer, grains and cotton can be very nice little crops grown on as small a patch of ground as a quarter of an acre. Nonetheless, the basic practices of harvesting still apply if you want to make the most of your crops.

Maintain a healthy flock of chickens by providing a balanced diet, clean and appropriately sized housing and sanitary living conditions. Optimal growth and performance depend on balanced nutrition.

Fall and winter are traditionally the toughest seasons for animals that spend the majority of their time outside. For farmers there are choices to be made as to just how many and which beef or dairy cattle that they want to carry through the winter. For the small or hobby farmer this choice may not be as commercially driven as a larger operation. Small farm cattle may be special breeds and sometimes even old fashioned sentiment may be a factor. However, there are challenges to be met both practical and financial if your cattle are going to emerge healthy and happy into spring pastures.

There is nothing nicer than harvesting your own produce. Healthy fresh vegetables picked straight from your plot retain considerably more of the nutrients that are often lost in transport and storage. Furthermore, a comparatively small investment in seeds and fertilizer added to a little diligent elbow grease can save you hundreds perhaps even thousands of dollars off your grocery bill.