E43: Feed Your Family and Earn an Income on Only FOUR Acres | Jill Ragan of Whispering Willow Farm

If you have had the privilege of hearing Jill speak at one of our events in the past, you know what a powerhouse she is when it comes to all things homesteading.  Not only is she an expert in a variety of homestead pursuits – market gardening, cut flower gardening, sourdough, and more – she is a very creative and intentional businesswoman.  And she does it all on only four acres!  If you have a desire to use your small acreage to provide both food AND income for your family, don’t miss this episode.  We cover a lot of ground in this episode, so buckle up!

In this episode, we cover:

  • How Jill is maximizing her four-acre farm to provide food for her family year-round and to produce a full-time income
  • Building a strategic business from your homestead that allows you to leave the 9-5
  • The one time management strategy that allows Jill to balance business, motherhood, homeschooling, homesteading, and more
  • Why Jill almost gave up on baking sourdough and how she made the process work for her busy life
  • The heart behind Jill’s online marketplace for homesteaders and gardeners
  • What tools Jill actually uses in her garden and the ones she can do without
  • Tips for planning out your high tunnel garden
  • Why cut flower gardening turned out to be a highly profitable business endeavor for Jill’s farm
  • Encouragement for the small-scale homesteader

E43: Feed Your Family and Earn an Income on Only FOUR Acres | Jill Ragan of Whispering Willow Farm Homesteaders of America

Thank you to our sponsors!

Earthley.com | Clean, natural, and affordable herbal remedies and body care that support health and wellness naturally

Nutrimill.com | High-quality small kitchen appliance products that function well, are easy to use, and promote healthy eating

About Jill

Jill Ragan is a small farmer and online educator, balancing life as a wife and mother of four beautiful children, three girls and one boy. Her journey into growing food began when she saw a largely unmet need in our society; with broken food systems, unfortunate waste, and an overall lack of connection to our Earth. She started growing food for her family instead of sourcing it from the grocery store, reducing waste as much as possible, and learning how to compost. Shortly thereafter, Jill began teaching others how important it is to do the same for themselves. She started documenting the simple changes she was implementing to contribute to the health of our planet and has since grown an extensive following on YouTube’s Whispering Willow Farm channel. 

Jill now grows food full time on a much larger scale on her family’s tiny but mighty home farm. She teaches others daily and takes advantage of any opportunity to demonstrate how even the smallest environmental action can make a significant impact. With passion and personality, Jill is committed to sharing her hard-earned knowledge with anyone and everyone she can.

Resources

Join us at our annual Homesteaders of America event in October 2025

Connect

Jill Ragan of Whispering Willow Farm | Website | Instagram | YouTube | Facebook

Homesteaders of America | Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Pinterest

Feed Your Family and Earn an Income on Only FOUR Acres Transcript

Amy Fewell Welcome to the Homesteaders of America Podcast, where we encourage simple living, hard work, natural healthcare, real food, and building an agrarian society. If you’re pioneering your way through modern noise and conveniences, and you’re an advocate for living a more sustainable and quiet life, this podcast is for you. Welcome to this week’s podcast. I’m your host, Amy Fewell, and I’m the founder of the Homesteaders of America organization and annual events. If you’re not familiar with us, we are a resource for homesteading education and online support. And we even host a couple of in-person events each year with our biggest annual event happening right outside the nation’s capital here in Virginia every October. Check us out online at HomesteadersofAmerica.com. Follow us on all of our social media platforms and subscribe to our newsletter so that you can be the first to know about all things HOA (that’s short for Homesteaders of America). Don’t forget that we have an online membership that gives you access to thousands—yes, literally thousands—of hours worth of information and videos. It also gets you discount codes, an HOA decal sticker when you sign up, and access to event tickets before anyone else. All right. Let’s dive into this week’s episode. 

Amy Fewell Welcome to the Homesteaders of America podcast. It’s January and this is our first episode of the year. I’m super excited to have Jill Ragan with us. Welcome to the podcast, Jill. 

Jill Ragan Hi, thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to chat today. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, we’ve been trying to get Jill for a little while and it seems like between my internet and sickness and pregnancy and conference stuff, it didn’t happen, but today it’s happening. So I’m really excited to have you on, Jill. You’ve been a speaker at our event at least once, right? Has it been twice yet? 

Jill Ragan No, I think I spoke not last year, but the year before. 

Amy Fewell Okay. And Jill’s coming back this year as a speaker. She’s been requested to come back multiple times, so we’re having her back again this year as we rotate multiple speakers in and out. And so for those of you guys that are coming in October, you will get to hear her speak. But let’s get started, Jill. Why don’t you tell us… Not everybody knows who Jill Ragan is, so why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

Jill Ragan Yeah, so like Amy mentioned, I’m Jill Ragan. My husband and I homestead in central Arkansas. We’re very small scale, so I would say that’s kind of our niche, is talking to small scale gardeners and homesteaders. We have a little over four acres and we’re slowly getting out of the animal business. I feel like when we bought our farm, we kind of went all in, which is what everyone tells you not to do, but you get really excited. So we had all the animals, but now my husband raises sheep, pigs and chickens and he’s slowly getting out of the pig business. But we grow food for our family year round. We grow cut flowers that we sell wholesale and also retail in a few different markets as well. And then, yeah, we’re just sharing our life online, do a lot of online courses, so we kind of have a lot that our business encompasses, but it’s all in that like intentional living realm, if you will. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. So I started watching you when you were first YouTubing. You weren’t on the property you’re on now, and I remember the very first video I watched, someone had asked a question: “How do you get your little ones to cooperate when you’re gardening?” And I was like, okay, I need this in my life. Someone needs to help me how to do this. But so I knew before the whole world knew you as Jill on YouTube with the big farm and the big high tunnels. And so one of the things that I think is most inspirational about you is how much you guys are growing on such a small acreage. And now you wrote a book as well. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about that? 

Jill Ragan Yeah. I love how I always forget that, like I’ll go to conferences and I’ll introduce myself and people will be like, “Hey, P.S. Remember you wrote a book?” So, yes, I wrote The Tiny but Mighty Farm and I just came out with The Tiny Farm Planner. And I’ve kind of been on this mission for the last four years or so. How do I adopt market gardening principles to backyard gardeners and teach backyard gardeners homesteaders who want to live sustainably, who want to grow their family’s food? We really kind of have to have a mindset shift and so that’s a lot of what my book talks about is what are those small farm values? How do we grow from seed? How do we grow year round? What does that look like? What does season extension look like? The pros and cons of in-ground gardening, raised bed gardening, growing in high tunnels—which is primarily what my family is adopting because we can just grow so much food year round. And so I hope that through the book it encourages even that backyard gardener to really take control of their family’s food and know that we are no one special, honestly. You know, like if me and my family, pretty self-taught, can do this, then it’s attainable for you, too. And my goal is just to kind of provide the fundamentals and the tools and resources they need to be able to see that same success for their family that my family has found through the last few years. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. So now you said you’re switching primarily to high tunnel growing. So first, where are you located and what’s your zone, and how did that shift look like for you? 

Jill Ragan Yeah. So I’m in central Arkansas. We were Zone 7b, which they just changed it to 8a which I’m like not jumping on board with. I’m like, “No, I’m still 7b.” And I think that’s important too. Even though your USDA growing zone might have changed, be familiar with your microclimate. I know where I am. We live on a ridge in a mountaintop. I’m still in that 7b, not really that 8a. So that is something to be mindful of. And I feel like the switch really took place for me when I co-farmed with a family. They co-farmed when we bought our property now and he was managing an organic farm local to us and he really just kind of shifted my mindset. And he would ask those questions on like, “You really have these goals to grow food for your family year round. You really want efficient systems and you don’t have the time freedom to hire employees. But why are you putting in things in place on your farm that are requiring more time and attention of you and getting less yield?” And so he was really that first person who posed those questions to me and my husband to think about how we were gardening in a different way. And so we were like, “Okay, let’s do this. Let’s adopt those market gardening principles and make them approachable and applicable to our backyard garden.” And the first year that we did that, we were blown away at the amount of food we were able to grow. And even still, I mean, every year I just have a humble bud of tomatoes and I harvest 80, 90 pounds a week for months on end. I mean, I have tomatoes in December. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, that’s awesome. We are getting ready to put up a high tunnel. We actually found it on Facebook Marketplace and so, Lord, help us with that. We’re hoping all the parts are there. But we’re excited for that because we’re kind of in between zones 6 and 7 and the same reason is because we’re kind of on a mountain ridge. We’re at the foothills of mountains. And so we’re excited to extend those growing seasons and kind of learn a new way of gardening. And that can extend it not just for our family, but for our community too. So I know a lot of people are thinking about doing that. A lot of homesteads and farms are thinking about getting grants to do those things. So I think we’ll definitely see an increase in that on homesteads, and especially because you only have four acres, you know what I mean? Like it can be done anywhere on even small acreage. We only have six. So it can definitely be done. But okay, now I’m going to switch gears a little bit. On your website, you have so many things, Jill. You’re doing so many things. You have sourdough, you have gardening, you have merchandise. You do… I don’t know if you still do this, but I know at one point you did one on one consulting for business and gardening. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about that? Because, you know, last year at the conference, one thing I heard constantly from people is that they wished they had access to a one-on-one homesteading or gardening mentor. So maybe share a little bit about what you offer online. 

Jill Ragan Yeah, I think when we started our farm, it was always with the intent to be profitable, which is a bit different than I feel like a lot of homesteaders. So whether that was us selling our produce, working wholesale, doing plant sales, we knew eventually we wanted to have an online mercantile and we’ve kind of built these different pillars to where we could funnel our resources in that way, which has turned out to be really profitable for us. So we have our different pillars of sourdough, and in that I’ve got courses, digital products, all of the physical products that go in alignment with that. We’ve got our gardening pillar, which I teach online, I’ve got my book, I do one on one consulting. We have our herbalism, which is just intentional living, health and wellness. And so that’s kind of worked out beautifully because although we grow food year round, most people don’t. So while I would love in the middle of December to be talking about growing and harvesting and preserving, that’s not really relevant. That’s when a lot of people are prepping and planning for their spring gardens. And so it’s great because we can kind of tap into one of those other pillars within our business. And I do just want to encourage anyone listening to this: it’s okay to turn a profit. I feel like in the homesteading niche, we shy away from talking about money. The truth is we have to live, right? And it costs money to live. So we have to kind of break the stereotype that we shouldn’t talk about money. Money’s not a bad thing. My family makes money and my husband and I are able to stay home. And so that’s something whether someone’s booking a gardening consult or a business consult, I try to encourage them with it’s not something to shy away from. Like if you’re not making money yourself, you’re making money for someone else and clocking in to a job. So why not find a way to make what you’re doing profitable if your desire is to stay home and do that? And so, yeah, I think when I do consulting, I really like just to encourage people to think about it in a different way. Think about maybe growing different varieties that you’ve never grown before if it’s going to reach the goal that you have to produce more. And so it’s just a great opportunity to connect with people that I otherwise would not be able to connect with. In fact, I’ve got a garden consult next week and it’s just fun to like chat and be a part of that process with people because I had those mentors in my life—talking about the friend who I co-farmed with—and I mean, that made a lasting impact on how we run our farm, how we do our gardens, and I hope to be able to pass that along to the next person as well. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, I think that’s awesome. This is a conversation that we have a lot within the organization and we’ve had business events and the reality is that if you’re not making money for yourself, then just like you said, you’re making money for someone else. And so there is a stereotype in homesteading. There’s this mindset where homesteading should be poverty. You know, it’s the poverty mindset. And it’s like, why? Why would you want to live in poverty? Isn’t this the American dream? Why would you want to live in poverty and still have to depend on someone else? And and so this is a topic I love to talk about because, you know, homesteading takes money, of course. But once you’re in it… I was thinking about this with my husband the other night. This whole week I’ve been sick. I’ve had a horrible stomach bug and it just really took me out. And so he’s been off work (he’s self-employed) this whole week. And I said last night to him, I said, “Isn’t it lovely that we’ve created a life where you can take off work this whole week and be here with our kids and be here with me and not have to worry about your paycheck not coming in because we’ve created these boundaries?” We’ve created these savings accounts. We’ve created all these things over the years because of homesteading and because of self-employment. And so I think it’s great that you’re offering these mentorships to people because it’s definitely needed. Especially now. We’re kind of seeing like this second massive wave of homesteaders coming into the community. And we were kind of blown away back in October when we asked everyone at the event during morning ceremony, I said, “How many of you are new this year who have never attended an HOA event?” And I would say that 80% of the people in the room raised their hands. 80% of these people had just come in to homesteading. They were just learning. They’d never come to an HOA event before, and so it’s really interesting to see these different waves coming in over the last 15 years of homesteading. So now you do all these things, Jill, but you’re also a wife and a mama. And so how do you manage all of these things that you’re doing throughout the whole year? 

Jill Ragan Yeah. Isn’t that the million dollar question? Man, I will be completely honest. I have not balanced that really well in the past. I’m a very career driven person, a very project driven person. So I like having projects, I like going all in on it, and a lot of times, especially in the earlier years where you’re building this thing up, my family… There was a lot of sacrifices. There’s a lot of time sacrifices. And last year I got pregnant with my sweet little Ziggy. And honestly, the Lord just like rocked me and really told me to check the posture of my heart and know that he’s given this gift so that I can spend time with my family. And so there’s been a lot of shifts in place. One of the things I lean into a lot is time blocking. And because my husband and I work from home together, we’re homeschooling our kids. It’s not like we go to a job and it’s an 8 to 5 thing. I’m sure you know this as well. And every day is different on the farm. Like every day there’s a different priority or a different obligation that needs to take place. And so I have really relied on time blocking. So I have a running list on my phone of to do lists in the priority. And so I’ll get up and say, “Okay, I have 30 minutes to work on this task and I’ll go all in for 30 minutes.” Then I might not work for a couple hours because I’m cooking breakfast or homeschooling the girls. And then when they are playing outside, I’ve got another hour to work on a task. And so it looks different and I think I had to be okay with my days looking different and realizing like, isn’t this the dream? That I don’t have to go and clock in and just work a straight set amount of hours? And so I listened to a podcast several years ago and they did a whole study on how you only have four productive hours in a day and you should not work more than four hours because anything that you put in after that isn’t actually productive. And I thought, wow, isn’t that true? The days that I just like work hours on end, I don’t have a clear mind, I’m not giving it everything I have, and so, like, why am I even doing it? And so for me, that’s my goal. If I can work four hours in a day, I call it a win and that’s not four straight hours. I time block it out, I have a list based off of priorities, and that has really allowed me more freedom with my family to really enjoy what I’ve worked so hard to build. And it’s been a great strategy for me and my family. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, there’s nothing like having more kids that will kind of set your priorities in place. We’re the same way. It’s funny because at the beginning of last year (I guess mid-last year), at the time, our youngest was turning two. And so, you know, she’s kind of coming into that age where she’s becoming more independent. I can take her outside to do more productive tasks. I was really convinced that she was our last child. And I told my husband, I’m like, “I’m really looking forward to 2025 because it’ll be the first year that we’ve actually lived on this property where we’ve had mostly independent children to where I can do everything I want to do.” And then lo and behold, you know, we find out that we’re pregnant again back in September and it’s like, oh my goodness. And so that’s kind of the place where we’ve been to. It’s like, okay, not only that, but putting all hands on deck. Like it’s not just mom doing everything. You know, dads doing stuff. Older kids are doing things. There’s an expectancy that happens when the family grows and life shifts. And so it’s kind of like we’re navigating this new space of time management where it doesn’t all fall on mom anymore. You know, gardening doesn’t all fall on mom. It’s got to be an everyone thing. So it’s been really interesting to start planning our year that way and kind of less stressful to be like, okay I don’t have to do this. You guys can help too. So I always like to ask that question to busy moms because everyone’s different. A lot of moms do time blocking. A lot of moms do various other things that we’ve had on here. So it’s really fun. 

Amy Fewell There are tons of other companies in the health and wellness area out there, companies that make body products, supplements and more. The problem is a lot of them use ingredients that are straight-up not that natural. It’s easier to use emulsifying wax or preservatives or gums because products come together more easily and they last longer. But sometimes they’re cheaper to make. At Earthley, they don’t do those things. Even companies that mean well and try to be natural really aren’t. People have bought into the westernized idea of what is natural. Earthley is not that company. They think that using the true whole variable plant and banking on the power of nature is much smarter and much safer than extracting one single compound from a plant. That’s what Western medicine does, and it’s really not safe at all. Check out Earthley and all their natural body care products. We are so honored to have Earthley as a sponsor and we can’t wait for you to check them out at earthley.com. 

Amy Fewell Okay. I know we’re going to have some sourdough questions, so let’s talk sourdough real quick. I have learned a lot from you, even just myself, doing sourdough and kind of probably putting the simplicity back into sourdough. You know, 2020 hit and everyone was doing sourdough. I had been doing sourdough before that, but not very consistently. So how did you get on your sourdough journey? What kind of made you start that? And I wonder if you might have maybe just a few tips for people who are getting started. 

Jill Ragan Yeah, I love that. I would hate to be like, “Oh, I joined the bandwagon in 2020,” but I totally joined the bandwagon in 2020 for different purposes though. I was having a lot of gluten intolerances so I was getting like all these rashes and bumps on my elbows. Was just not feeling well at all. And one of my friends is a nutritionist and I was asking her like, “Can you help me? Like, what is going on?” And she was like, “I think you have a gluten intolerance. Have you tried sourdough?” And that was the first time I had ever heard of that. Even being in like the crunchy homesteading world, I had never heard of sourdough bread. I guess because where I live, you don’t go to the store and find sourdough bread. That’s just not available to us. We don’t have really local bakeries. The ones we did at the time didn’t sell sourdough bread. And so they really kind of got me into it. Of course, I tried to make my own sourdough starter. Completely failed so they gave me some of their sourdough starter and kind of taught me and I realized like, wow, this is super intimidating for a beginner, right? Like, you got to get your ratios right, your environment in your house needs to be right. I was kind of questioning like, why is everyone jumping on this bandwagon when it’s so hard and so scientific? And that is not me at all. I’m such a free spirit, go with the flow, I don’t really want to read instructions, type of gal. And so I thought there has to be an easier way, so I would just like kind of get the principles right of like, okay, once I got an active starter, but then I figured out like, how can I actually just make this easy for me? I mean, I was getting up like 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning having to bake my sourdough. I’m like, this is not worth it. And so through the years, I have really focused on the art of sourdough and not so much the science, because the truth is there’s a lot of wiggle room in there. There’s a lot of flexibility. You just have to try it. And so that’s a lot of how I like to teach sourdough is how do you make it work for you? What are the tips and tricks? So for me, I like to feed my starter in the morning, I like to mix my dough in the evening, let it bulk for a minute, and then I do like a cold proofing which I feel like is a hack for all moms. So you’ll get up the next morning, you’ll shape it, put it in your baking tin, but then you put it in your fridge and it essentially makes your dough go dormant. So it’s not going to continue fermenting, but then if you work outside of the home, you can not worry about it. For me, if I’m like tackling garden tasks or homeschooling the girls, I can just put it in the fridge and then an hour before dinner, take it out, score it and bake it and it’s completely fresh. And so I try to figure out like, how do I make sourdough work for me and not the other way around? Because while there are so many great health benefits, if it’s causing me stress and taking time away from my family, that’s really not the goal. And so one of the ways I like to teach is just like there’s a lot of flexibility. Like my sister would call and be like, “I had to throw out my dough.” I went over and I’m like, “No, bake it anyway.” Like, you know? So that’s a lot of what I like to teach is like, push the limits on it. Know that it’s flexible. If you don’t follow a recipe to a T, that’s totally fine. I don’t either. Most of my recipes are pretty simple and straightforward just to hopefully take out that overwhelm a little bit. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. I remember when I first started. My husband loves sourdough bread and so, you know, he would want it for dinner. Like he would tell me that night and so I’m like, “Dude, no. You can’t tell me that night you want sourdough. You got to tell me like 18 hours before that you want sourdough.” And so even after cooking sourdough for so many years, I think it was just last year (or maybe it was even more recently) where you had a reel or something up about how you put your dough in the fridge and like, this is so simple. Why didn’t I think about this? And so you’re right. Work smarter, not harder. It makes life easier because if you’re just, you know, like you said, getting up at 2:00 in the morning trying to bake bread, that bread’s not working for you. You’re working for it. So I love that. We’re hoping to get Jill to talk a little bit more about sourdough at one of the conferences. So once we have all of our topics and stuff in order, we’ll get them posted. Okay. So just a couple more questions, Jill, and then we will let you go for the day. I want to jump back to gardening real quick. I know at one point you had gardening products for sale online. Do you still have those, and if you do, what are some of those products? Because I know a lot of people will watch you online and they’ll see the products that you use and then, of course, there’s always that question, well, where do I get these? How do I get them? So maybe talk a little bit about that. 

Jill Ragan Yeah. So our online store… Really the goal behind that was to work with other small business owners. So everything we have is either from a small business or handmade from a local artist or crafter. So that is a lot of our gardening products, we found that we have a lot of friends and a lot of businesses we trusted and we work in collaboration with them. So you can get all sorts of soil amendments (things like that) on our website from Mindful Farmer. They’re all the amendments, all the things that I currently use. I’ve worked in collaboration with Bootstrap Farmer to create my own pots and trays. So you can also order that on our website and then Bootstrap Farmer will fulfill it. We have soil test kits that we have from Redmond Agriculture. We work alongside them as well on that. And then obviously, like my book and my planner. And then we have a lot of seasonal things. So seasonally, we’ll have harvest baskets, we’ll have different trials, you know, herb scissors, we’ll do garden tool belts, but we really try to bring those in because we are working with specific artisans and crafters on that. Those are more like we launch in the springtime, have throughout the summer, and then we’ll discontinue, if you will, throughout the fall in the winter. 

Amy Fewell Yeah. So what are some of your your must haves? Maybe like what are your top three must haves to have in gardening on your farm in high tunnel gardening? 

Jill Ragan Yeah, I think the number one tool that I use all the time is my tool belt because my tool belt holds my phone, it holds rubber bands, it holds pruners, it holds markers… Like everything I possibly need goes on this tool belt that just attaches to my belt. You can look them up online even if you don’t order through us. But it is so great because instead of carrying buckets and buckets around, I’ve just got everything in that one little area. I’m also not an advocate of buying things that you think you need, right? So like a broadfork I use constantly, whether we’re flipping beds, amending beds, etc. So it’s a larger purchase, but I feel like I use that more than… Like I’m never grabbing a garden trowel or I’m never grabbing a shovel. Those just aren’t things… I use my hands. And so a broadfork makes my job super easy. The gardening pouch makes my job super easy. What else do I have? A good cart. I use my garden cart I feel like every day of just piling everything in because we have no sort of side-by-side, four-wheeler, tractor or anything like that, so we’re walking all over our property (which that need might be different for different people). But I like to throw everything in there off the back porch, walk it to all my areas, and it makes a huge difference. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, we’re learning we need some new tools for high tunnel gardening, and so a broadfork is one of those things that is on my list of things to get this year. Now in regards to high tunnel gardening, I think in your videos you’re using raised beds. You’re not actually planting directly in the ground, is that right? 

Jill Ragan So we have two different methods. So we actually bought our current farm from some friends of ours. So there was one high tunnel on property with raised beds in there because the ground was unlevel. Y’all don’t come at me. I don’t actually recommend raised beds in a high tunnel if you’re talking about being super efficient. So this past year we put in a new high tunnel. It’s where we grow all of our flowers that we sell and it’s more in-ground gardening, which just makes it more efficient. You can cut down on costs. Granted, there were some things we had to do, you know, kind of in prep, so we had to pay someone to come in and level out the ground. We had to bring dirt in to level at our ground, but it makes cultivation so much easier. It makes harvest and clean up so much easier. So if you are — from an efficiency standpoint — wanting to grow in a high tunnel, I personally feel like in-ground gardening… And I would say in-ground, like we’re building up the beds, right? So we’ve got like 12 inches of compost, topsoil, organic matter in there, but it just makes it so much easier to navigate those tunnels. Another thing too, just if anyone’s thinking about it, our current, like the one that was on property before, it just has like a single screen door to walk in, which makes it really inconvenient of getting things in and out. So on our new tunnel, we’ve got two doors that open up to where, like, we could even get a tractor in if we had one, which we borrow one from our neighbor, which makes it great to top dress, maybe you’re putting mulch down in your walkways, you need to clean out the high tunnel at the end of the season—just little changes like that make the ease of working in a tunnel that much easier. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, we’re excited to have ours. Ours is one you can fit a tractor into. So we’re really excited to have that. 

Amy Fewell Nutrimill is dedicated to creating high-quality small kitchen appliance products that function well, are easy to use, and promote healthy eating. You might recognize the Nutrimill name by some of the products that you already love, like their grain grinders, their Bosch mixers, and so many other amazing, cool products that you can use in the kitchen. Perhaps their most popular from Nutrimill is the grain mills. There’s individual grain mills and higher-end grain mills that produce way more, all at one time in bulk. Check out our sponsor Nutrimill at nutrimill.com. 

Amy Fewell Okay, we’re going to switch to the last topic which is cut flower gardening. I’m glad you touched on that just a second. So a lot of people are getting into adding beautiful things on their farms that they can sell, that they can enjoy themselves, so how did you decide to get into cut flower gardening? 

Jill Ragan Yeah, I don’t feel like I actually decided. I felt like it was kind of decided for me. So I was selling to a local vendor. They’re like a locally sourced grocery store and I’ve been selling to them produce and microgreens, gosh, for years now. And so they are a cut flower farm because they’re very urban and that’s all they could grow in their tiny front yard. And she was needing more flowers because the nearest city to me has four colleges. So she noticed that she was buying a lot of produce from the farmer but all these college kids really just wanted flowers for their apartments, for their dorms, whatever. And so she was trying to find some of her vegetable farmers that would grow flowers. And so I thought, okay, yeah, I can try this. And so the first year I just grew zinnias. Nothing else, just zinnias, and they went like hotcakes. And she was like, “Okay, could you grow more? Would you be willing to grow more?” And then slowly and slowly, I started realizing that I can make way more money selling cut flowers than I could produce. And when it comes to produce, if you’re working with a shop (which is what we did because we supply farm to table restaurants), the more they order in bulk, the more of a discount they get. And so it was like we harvest and we deliver a ton, but then we’re taking a massive cut for that. And so just to give you guys an idea, for a pound of organic tomatoes, I would sell a pound of organic tomatoes for the price of what I could sell one dahlia step for. 

Amy Fewell Wow. 

Jill Ragan That’s wild. And when I think about the time maintenance that a dahlia takes versus a tomato of growing them out, we hard pruning them, I trellis them on a two leader system, I’m pruning them every single week, I’m harvesting every single week, like like there’s a lot more maintenance required for growing a tomato than there is for a dahlia. And then the price margins are so much higher and I would sell those so much better, that that was really how we shifted in, okay, there’s a need in our community, we can fill that need, and it is a more profitable decision for our family. And so that’s really how we transitioned into cut flowers. And gosh, I mean, it’s so beautiful. And so we do still grow food for our family year round. We grow food for our interns as well. And then we grow enough food to donate to local food banks in our area as well. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, that’s awesome. So what kind of flowers are you growing in a flower garden? 

Jill Ragan Yeah. So dahlias are kind of our money crop. We grow dahlias quite largely. This past year we did tulips in the spring and we offered a tulip subscription, which it was very profitable if you’re looking into that as far as what is required out of you. We do a lot of lisianthus, which is also a high dollar crop, which you’ll notice I’m saying that a lot. When you think about farming for profit, you really have to think, okay, a bachelor button, I can get $0.30 for or a lisianthus, I can get $3 a stem. For a tulip, I can get $2 or, you know, dahlia, I can get to $2.50 per stem. And so for us, we are really growing with profit in mind. And so that is a lot of what we are growing. We do have zinnias that we grow, so we kind of have stuff for a market bouquet, but I would say we do that more for our family than what we sell. So we’ll always have zinnias, celosia, basil, strawflowers, fun stuff like that. And then we’re selling more of our high end crops to wholesalers. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, that’s awesome. So what’s your favorite to sell? Whether it’s a, you know, high producing crop for income or just zinnias, what’s your favorite? 

Jill Ragan I think I love selling dahlias because we’re one of the only producers of dahlias in our area. So it’s always really fun for the customer to see flowers that you just otherwise don’t see and you don’t have access to. And there’s just something… There’s just something about a dahlia that is absolutely beautiful. So that’s definitely my favorite to grow and also to sell because it’s one of those things that just brings someone so much joy. I’ve never like made an arrangement or dropped off dahlias and someone did not smile because of that. And that’s why we are a for-profit farm. I want it to be joyful for myself and the person receiving it, the customer. And so we’ve just never had complaints on dahlias because they just make everybody happy. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, dahlias are a favorite here too, because there’s just so many varieties of them. You know, there’s so many that don’t even look the same. They’re high maintenance here in Virginia and maybe there too but, you know, they are beautiful. Okay, Jill, well, I’ve kept you for at least 30 minutes, but at the end of the show (which sometimes takes the longest, we have to wait and see), I always open up this platform to you, you know, if there’s something burning inside of you that you want to say to our audience or just an inspiration or encouragement, if you could say anything to the Homesteaders of America community right now, what would that be? No pressure.

Jill Ragan No pressure, that’s a good question. I think what I would say to anyone listening to this (and it’s something I have to remind myself of often) is start small and don’t be afraid to stay small. I feel like not only in our homesteading niche, but so many niches just kind of across the board, there’s this mentality of go big or go home, right? There’s this mentality of keeping up with the Joneses. Like, “Well, they have a dairy cow, so I must need a dairy cow to be a homesteader,” and, “They got 20 acres of land, I must need 20 acres.” And one, that can really just get you in a bad space to constantly be comparing people, but I think I have proved that you can do a lot on a small acreage. So while we live on four acres, less than an acre, are we cultivating for food and flowers and we’re able to grow and sell year round from that. And so I encourage you guys: embrace being small and knowing that you don’t have to get bigger. Like, you don’t have to have a tractor, you don’t have to have more high tunnels, you don’t have to have the fanciest things. Be content with where God has you and know that sometimes, oftentimes for me, most of the times, like that is enough. And so I just encourage you to remember that today. Where you are is enough. The space you have is enough. What you’re able to grow and do is enough. 

Amy Fewell Yeah, absolutely. We often talk about this. We live on six acres now, but we started on a half acre and almost every few podcasts, I’m mentioning this to you guys is we grew so much food on a half acre. In fact, it was probably my favorite place to grow food because you got to know it so intimately in such a small space and realize that you could be tiny but mighty and you could produce so many things. So I love that encouragement, Jill, and I know everyone else will, too. All right. Well, Jill, thank you for joining me this week on the podcast. You guys don’t forget to check out Jill. All of this information will be in the show notes. You can find her on YouTube, on her website. You can find her at multiple homesteading events across the nation, and you can find her at our HOA October event this year. So if you guys have any questions, definitely leave them below in the comments if you’re watching on YouTube, and you can find this on all podcast platforms, too. All right, guys. Until next time, happy homesteading. 

Amy Fewell Hey, thanks for taking the time to listen to this week’s Homesteaders of America episode. We really enjoyed having you here. We welcome questions and you can find the transcript and all the show notes below or on our Homesteaders of America blog post that we have up for this podcast episode. Don’t forget to join us online with a membership or just to read blog posts and find out more information about our events at HomesteadersofAmerica.com. We also have a YouTube channel and follow us on all of our social media accounts to find out more about homesteading during this time in American history. All right, have a great day and happy homesteading. 

Feed Your Family & Earn an Income on Only Four Acres | Homesteaders of America Podcast

Similar Posts