detailed information about different crops..

[DDD]

I am in a dialog with a bank about a loan for buy a farm, but since me and my girlfriend dont get so much in salary from our work, we will need to show the bank that we can earn money from producing vegetables and sell them.
I need some numbers for make an excel worksheet.
For example i need to know how much you can harvest per hectare, how much time you need for grow per hectare, how much expenses there are per hectare (seeds, seeding-soil and so on.), and so on.
is there some schemes with these kind of information.
I want to grow a large range of different kinds of vegetables.
Its easy to find those numbers for big scale farming where you have large machines and all, but for small scale farming where all is with hand tools, its not easy to find so detailed information.
thank you for help if you know where to look.
sorry for my english.. i am from Denmark.

[Flo]

There are so many other considerations to take into account says the farmer's daughter turned allotment holder and blog writer for a vegetable sharing co-operative.

You have to take into account your growing experience (if none then you really do have a steep learning curve), the business advice and support you can get, what market there is for various crops, the price you can get and will it cover costs such as picking, packing and transport to market. Will you be organic? Is there a market for organic if you are. Will you need other help than yourselves? You are best placed to know your local market. How about doing customer surveys with a view to maybe building up some form of sales to a group of local customers to get you going?

You should also be looking for sorting out a proper business partnership if you and your girlfriend are going into something together. Believe me even within a family there can be plenty of disagreements over:
a. how to run things
b. who does what
c. who has the final say
d. what happens if things fail
e. how much you can both take out individually for living expenses
f. who is responsible for the financial side and its planning
g. what happens in the case of death which is usually unexpected
h. what happens if either of you decide to pull out of the venture or you start a family which puts pressure on who does things and the personal financial implications

I'd say basic building, electrical and plumbing skills will be good along with a good mechanic training in all sorts of vehicles. And possibly another form of income to supplement what comes off the land.

[Green Aura]

I don't have any experience of this - like many (most?) gardeners I tend to struggle to work out how much I need to plant so invariably end up with too much, or too little of any given crop. But there are a couple of books I have found useful, to some extent - mainly because they seem to be aimed at smallholders rather than my small garden.

http://files.shroomery.org/cms/How%20to ... 202002.pdf
http://files.diydharma.org/other/John_S ... ciency.pdf

I would suggest that if you find them useful you buy the books.

Other things that spring to mind are - what can you grow in your area given your climate, light levels etc. Is there an obvious gap in the market (maybe something a little exotic) or room for another producer of regular, everyday vegetables? Will you need polytunnels or are they already there? Does the land need any remedial work or is it good to go? Where will you sell?Are there any Farmers' Markets nearby, or will you sell direct from the farm gate or farm shop. Will you keep animals? Will you have to give up your current jobs? Or could you start slowly starting with just a part of the land then adding more each year (and keeping your jobs initially to pay bills). Maybe you could rent out some of the land to give another steady income stream in the early years? You don't say how big the area you're considering is but your talk of hand cultivating/harvesting suggests it's quite small.

It sounds very exciting and hopefully you're getting all the things already mentions sorted, or at least thought about. Sorry I can't help with the specific questions you asked.

Best of luck, I hope you get your loan.

[ina]

First bit of advice - start small, especially if you have limited experience. I worked for two market gardens here in Scotland, and both were still learning after many years of experience - and there are still years when absolutely nothing is earned through the business, and living costs have to be covered by other means.

All of the above, of course - I won't repeat it. But in my experience, if you have to buy the land and borrow money for it, there's very little hope of making a living of it; you'll just be struggling to pay off debt. Might be different in Denmark, though (land and produce prices etc).

(And your English is fine - no need to apologise! )

[harðfiskur]

I read your previous posts DDD and to be honest I would start with a balcony or a greenhouse if I was you.