Tumbledown Farm .9 Acres (give or take an acre or two)

Editor's Note: With the average value of farmland in the Midwest up 25% in the past year (Wisconsin Ag Connection, "Midwest Farmland Values Jump...," 11/17/2011) and with credit tight (cheaper, but also tighter), this final chapter of Smith's French Gardening makes more sense than ever. As Carol Deppe says, what is critical is not the ownership of land to garden, but "the knowledge and skills to use it" ("How Much Land Do You Need?" in The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times).

A Calendar of Reminders for the intensive French market garden, based on the climate at Mayland in England.

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Summary: Financial returns (gross) from a 2-acre garden in the French intensive market garden style, years 1907-1908 at Mayland. Profit and loss, cash flow statement and other attachments.

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Excerpt: THE following is an estimate of the approxi­mate expenditure for making a French garden of one acre.

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Excerpt: THE cost of completely equipping a two-acre garden, according to the plan given, will be about £1,290. If there is difficulty in getting a satisfactory water supply, the cost may exceed this; still it may, on the other hand, be less.

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Excerpt: A PROTECTIVE covering for the plants is indispensable in severe weather. For effectiveness and convenience nothing has been found to equal straw mats.

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Excerpt: It is folly to undergo the trouble and expense of raising excellent produce and then to be careless and permit it to be offered for sale in unattractive form.

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Excerpt: TURNIPS usually sell well in Covent Garden Market early in the season, and growers who send to that market should plan to have this as one of their crops. If this is done, how­ever, it will need some special planning, as the turnip does not easily fall in with the other crops, needing, as it does, to be sown alone,....

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Excerpt: THE ridge cucumber when well grown is very little inferior in appearance to the frame variety, and by many is judged to be superior in flavor. It is essentially the poor man's cucumber, and in localities where it com­mands a ready sale should be grown in quantity.

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Excerpt: TOMATOES grown in the open may be made a very satisfactory and profitable 'crop if properly handled. The principal objections to this crop as usually grown are: The fruit is of a bad shape; it ripens late; has a short season; brings low prices; and the plants, especially in a damp autumn, are very subject to fungoid diseases, so that sometimes the bulk of the crop is lost. All these difficulties may be readily overcome.

[Editor's Note: See our Tumbledown Farm Tomato page for additional notes on growing tomatoes in a suburban landscape.]