My farming story from the beginning

3 posts

Member for

6 years 4 months
Last seen: 03/08/2018 - 21:05
Joined: 11/08/2017 - 08:24

My farming story from the beginning

Hello everyone. I have put myself in a position where i would like advise. My father left me a block of land of a 1000 acres. Heavily gum forested. Before his passing he cleared approx 100 acres ( government fined us $34 000 for unlawful clearing) and built two dams. Well finished building one dam approx 40 acres, i think its 70 to 80 % full ( me googling how to use a laser level and measure the spilway) ( i google everything as you can imagine no one to ask how and why otherwise) and never finished the wall of the second so its never been more full than about 10 acres. I have no family or friends to ask advice. As we all have city lives.( brisbane) i grew up overseas ( africa) in an agricultural life style and school. Moved to austraila on my last day of school. 15 yr ago. Being young i was pressured into taking up a air conditioning apprenticeship, which now been qualified and running my own business for 7 years. My family knew my roots were to one day farm again hence my fathers gift. My plan is to start a small farm and move to the farm ( Kumusha- african word for homeland) be as close to fully sufficient as possible. Start a family. Live off the land. So far... i have 3 sheds - "big shed " 8 bay shed. "Snake shed" for the fuel. And "the house" another shed with a bed. A blue tractor i know nothing about but it has a slasher on the back and a scoop in front. A excavator. And a bulldozer( which i had to climb a tree to get signal , learn how to hotwire and a crash course on how to use. No keys for any of the machines. Dont know where they are. Ive used tge dozer to clear tge fence line arount tge property and clear the roads through the property as lovely cyclone debby left me a lot of toppled trees. I think im pushing 20 hours exp on the dozer. We have 8 chooks 6 hens polish bantum $5 chooks lovely eggs and 2 cocks a plymoth rock and a australop pure bred. Which started off in brisbane untill i woke up one morning to 4am crow and realised i had one or two boys on my hands. Neighbours... ha you can imagine how happy they were. We have 19 cows type unknown with no identification on them they have been there for more than 12 months they also just gave birth to 9 calves last week. Im sure there belong to one of our neighbour's but ive read a small amount about "clean skins" so if anything maybe i should return the whole lot like a good neughbour or commandeer the calves as they were born on my land so now 28 cows. I have been taking bags of dirt from the farm to brisbane and learning what and how to grow with it. It is very clay silty soil. Practically zero organic matter. So im slowly tackling that issue as id like to start placing some sort of pasture seed. And thats how i found this incredible website. "Googling" how to and what pasture to grow. Sorry for the very jumbled story. First morning coffee gives my brain abit of an overload. There is probably 20 topics above. Anyone who is willing to read at least some of it and advise me on what to do next or how to go about it would be greatly appreciated. Final note. I am 100% into this project. I am determined not to fail. I will not fail as i will keep trying until i get it right.

Last seen: 11/19/2018 - 09:01
Joined: 09/19/2018 - 14:16
Holy moly, just read your story. How have things gone since you posted? Shaz
Last seen: 12/06/2018 - 11:02
Joined: 12/04/2018 - 10:48
Wow wish I had that much land given to me haha I don't know much about the area up there as I am from VIC, but there is a lot of information these days in restoring organic matter back to the soil and no-till farming practices that I would recommend you read, I have lately been filling my brain with all that stuff. What are you interest in? farming animals, growing crops or horticulture? what area is your farm if you don't mind me asking?

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