If I understand your situation, you have land and are really into good produce and a garden enviornment but not so much the work to have it?
If the acreage in Virgina is not too far from an urban area I think you could enlist some help in exchange for sharing the land and produce grown? Does that sound like it could work?[/quote]
We’re in an resort/ agricultural area. The people who live in the resort area just want to play bridge and golf, and get landscapers to cut their fifth of an acre of grass.
The other residents are farmers or else folks who have enough land of their own to garden. We’re close enough to an urban area for it to be convenient when serious health care is required, or we want a little culture, or when we’re forced to patronize a big-box store, but not nearly close enough for city residents to come and work our land.
What we’ve been doing is allowing the neighboring rancher to graze his cattle there (We keep about two acres for the homesite, and that’s plenty). I don’t charge him to use the land. It would be a hardship for us to have to mow it and care for it, and we don’t need it for anything right now. I figure cooperation is a good thing, and it’s worked out well. We had record-breaking snows in Virginia and Maryland this year, and I never had to pay to have my road to the house plowed out. He sent some of his farmhands over to help with the digging last year, and he’s helped out with a couple other things.
The work of a vegetable garden doesn’t bother me so much, but, since we only get down there every other weekend at the most, I’d need help with the watering, picking, and pest control in between. But you’ve given me an idea: I have a couple neighbors who are about our age. They do a lot of flower gardening, and their lot is gorgeous. I’m going to see if they’d be interested in a cooperative veggie garden on either their lot or mine. Cool beans. Thanks, Russell!
