2019 - The Farm

Ruid · Mar 31, 2019

I'm looking forward to buying peppers from you but I don't want it to end up with you being held together by duct tape.

Wermland · Mar 31, 2019

TrentL said:
Yes, a LOT of the plants will be up for sale this year. We're going to do our best to package them; wife actually ordered in a bunch of random house plants off Amazon so we could study their packaging and effectiveness.

Smart!
I have plans to start sending plants too, the packaging is definitely the hardest parts. I should order some from you [emoji6]

TrentL · Mar 31, 2019

Ruid said:
I'm looking forward to buying peppers from you but I don't want it to end up with you being held together by duct tape.

Oh I try to be careful, but the raintight fitting compression bolts on the 3/4" EMT pissed me off. I broke two of the damn things and had no spares left - The torn elbow muscle (or tendon, ripped right at the junction so not really sure which it is) was from trying to get the second broken one off of the conduit. They use cheap pot metal or something for the fitting body on the raintight EMT connectors. They aren't dimensionally uniform and trying to get a good seat is a nightmare sometimes.

I cleared out three big box hardware stores and one electrical contractor supply place out of raintight EMT fittings last week, so I could do everything in the high tunnel in conduit. Figure that's the safest bet, plus the 1/2 and 3/4 EMT gives me anchor points for shade cloth / etc (with plastic clips I have which are designed for it).

There's at least a couple thousand bucks in electrical stuff (wiring, EMT and liquidtite conduit, breakers, boxes, raintight fittings, receptacles and switches, wiring, ground rod, etc), $1349 for the ventilation system (2x 30" 6,000 cfm fans w/ 2x 42" motorized intakes), $500 in shade cloth, $2,026 in insect screen (optinet), $2,600 in wiggle wire tracks (mostly to finish the other two high tunnels), etc.

That damn high tunnel cost a fortune. Materials last year (for 3 of the frames) were $15617, so $5,207 ea. Earthmoving (grading) took two weeks and I had three skid loaders going for a few days at one point. Figure another four grand, in machine rental (700 + 500 for equipment + labor for a week @ 2400, and lots of diesel). Cedar posts and boards (can't use treated lumber in certified organics) cost another ~$1,000. CA6 gravel (40 tons) for an underlayment was about $600, then $300 in ground fabric as a weed block, then another $1200 in CA11 white rock; concrete was $1300, so about $3400 in aggregate materials.

Oh and then there's the tables. Another 1,000 in lumber and another $1400 in heavy weight fence panels.

Irrigation, can't forget that. Another $600 in emitters, 5mil and 1" tube, pressure regulator, various hardware.

So adding it up, and tossing in a couple weeks of labor for the guy that helped me, this damn high tunnel cost right at about $26,500 (roughly).

And we're still not done with it. Probably got another week of labor left on it (w/ Joe helping, it's paid labor, so another grand). So better figure $27,500 for the first high tunnel.

Just for hardening off plants, and growing isolated pepper seed!

For not much more I could have built a big pole building and grown under lights, but then I'd have stupid high ongoing electrical costs for lights and cooling. (The big marijuana cultivation center up the road has about 2 million bucks wrapped up in HVAC).

TrentL · Mar 31, 2019

Each 100' low tunnel I set up for isolation will use 1/2 or 3/4 conduit as well.

For 1/2";

$4 per 10' conduit x 26 pieces = $104
1/2" snap clamps (52 pieces) = $30 (either that, or have to sandbag it; probably still end up sandbagging it...)
Proteknet mesh = $155 (get roughly 8 100' rows out of a $1234 820' roll, one row will have to be a few feet short since it has to be gathered at both ends of the tunnel)

$289 / 100' row

For 3/4":
Same, except conduit is 2x as expensive, so add $104 ($393 for 100' row)

I'll only be able to keep chinense under there for a short period, they'll out-grow the 3' wide by 4' high tunnel fairly quickly, but should have pod set by then so I can harvest isolated pods. At 2' spacing it costs about $5.78 per plant to isolate. Annuums I can keep under there until the end, cost for isolating annuums at closer 1.5' spacing will be $4.37 per plant.

In the high tunnel, by comparison, @ roughly 600 plant density, at a cost of $27,500 (and climbing, don't know what electrical will cost this year) my first year of isolation is going to cost about $46 per plant.

Even on a 10 year depreciation (and not counting in replacement plastic, or other maintenance), that only lowers my cost to $4.60 per plant in the absolute best case, not counting ventilation electrical or irrigation costs. (There's a lot more that adds on to this; potting soil, pots, depreciation of mix equipment, depreciation of lights and electrical build out for the inside 3 month part of grow with LP gas, lights, labor to do everything). Many of those costs (indoor part) hit whether it's field isolation or high tunnel isolation, but the high tunnel isolation will be more reliable as there's no dirt, and the total plastic encapsulation of the building (ground fabric, side walls, end walls, and ceiling) coupled with 50 micron mesh to keep critters out of doors, etc, will guarantee isolation from pollinators.

So yeah growing in isolation, in bulk, is stupidly expensive.

When I sell seed, it will be factored off of "cost of goods sold", isolated seed stock is going to be considerably more expensive than open pollinated (which is likely why so few do it..)

I just hope I can even come close to breaking even at this point. The math isn't in my favor, at all, unless we somehow get real popular, real fast. There's a finite ceiling that people will be willing to pay for isolated seed,

So I'll sell some plants, too, to help absorb some of the indoor grow costs and get us earlier revenue (seed sales are a winter thing, fresh pods are late summer, I'm sorely lacking in spring revenue sources). Potting soil will hopefully also help spring revenue.

Walchit · Mar 31, 2019

Hope you have bumper crops and sales this year man! You deserve it

TrentL · Apr 1, 2019

Looks like we will have a first potting soil sale this week. A lady is stopping by to get 5 cubic feet tomorrow afternoon.

You guys think I should do a side by side container grow with a few different soils this year to see the difference?

DWB · Apr 1, 2019

Definitely.

skullbiker · Apr 1, 2019

TrentL said:
Looks like we will have a first potting soil sale this week. A lady is stopping by to get 5 cubic feet tomorrow afternoon.

You guys think I should do a side by side container grow with a few different soils this year to see the difference?

How much will you be selling your potting soil for?

PtMD989 · Apr 1, 2019

TrentL said:
Looks like we will have a first potting soil sale this week. A lady is stopping by to get 5 cubic feet tomorrow afternoon.

You guys think I should do a side by side container grow with a few different soils this year to see the difference?

Hell yeah[emoji16]. With a variety of different vegetables and maybe flowers?

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TrentL · Apr 1, 2019

skullbiker said:
How much will you be selling your potting soil for?

Trying to shoot for a $30/2 cu ft. bag. Promix organic and FoxFarms are both north of $45 for 2 cubic feet on Amazon. But that's also at free shipping prices via Amazon Prime fulfillment. FoxFarms runs $36+ for 40 lbs (roughly 2 cu ft) organic at walmart. I figure wholesale would be closer to $10 / cu ft ($20 / 2 cu ft), so the retailer can make money, too.

TrentL · Apr 1, 2019

PtMD989 said:
Hell yeah[emoji16]. With a variety of different vegetables and maybe flowers?

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DWB said:
Definitely.

The only thing that really makes me nervous about using someone else's mix is getting fungus nats or something, lol.

So far we've had zero pests inside, no gnats, no aphids, no whtieflies. Want to keep it that way.

So I probably wouldn't do the test inside or in the isolation high tunnel; I'd probably do it outdoors, just to avoid any contamination. Heard of too many people using foxfarm or promix and getting fungus gnats.

TrentL · Apr 1, 2019

Shit these are getting too big, too fast. They're about a month ahead of where they were last year, hell, they were about this big when I planted them out! Definitely did much better with the soil mix this year!

TrentL · Apr 2, 2019

Also, they're sucking down an average of 60 gallons of water each day now.

It's a REAL bitch to hand water them now.

TrentL · Apr 2, 2019

Later transplants aren't quite THAT big; this is one from a couple weeks ago, CGN21500, was in the last tray we transplanted up.

PtMD989 · Apr 2, 2019

Damn, those plants are looking great , nice and healthy [emoji106][emoji16]

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Mildfruit · Apr 2, 2019

TrentL said:
Also, they're sucking down an average of 60 gallons of water each day now.

It's a REAL bitch to hand water them now.

What

And here i'm bitching over having to replace a 5 gallon water container WEEKLY... I have it easy, thanks for the perspective

TrentL · Apr 2, 2019

Mildfruit said:
What

And here i'm bitching over having to replace a 5 gallon water container WEEKLY... I have it easy, thanks for the perspective

Haha we go through 14+ gallons every other night just on the 60 starter trays in the basement (plus The Duke, who is drinking a cup and a half of water a day now, and a couple cups split between the various control peppers each day)

They aren't all on the same drinking schedule so usually it's just somewhere between 7-10 gals a night, depending on humidity

Chickens get 6 gallons a day, too.

karoo · Apr 2, 2019

Those plants look fantastic . Post #472 , some of the best pepper plant pics I've seen in a long time!
Good luck with the rest of your grow.

Kennylay · Apr 2, 2019

Holy sea of green, looks like you're damn near 100% dialed in. You sure you don't want to sell some starts yet lol?

Datil · Apr 2, 2019

Awesomeness :woohoo: