The Urban Farmer: Growing Food for Profit on Leased and Borrowed Land Kindle Edition

When I first reviewed this book, times were different: restaurants were doing well, and there was a ton of demand growing microgreens/fresh produce for the restaurant market. I began following Curtis Stone shortly after buying his book, and he still has a spot sense of the changing times and a timely set of instructions on how to be prepared by living on the land. Yes, his message has pivoted from his days of working other people's urban plots, and he freely admits that now is not the time to focus on urban farming. But the knowledge in the book is timeless and since now It is better to get out of cities, with their ridiculous regulations, you still need a plan to grow your own food, and hopefully make a living as well. I would still buy this book because people need and want to eat fresh locally grown food. Whether you farm your 5 acre plot in the countryside for your family or garden as a business to make a living selling local produce to your community, the gardening knowledge in this book is invaluable and stands the test of time. I am excited to see if Curtis writes another book, to reflect our current situation, since he has done a fantastic job spreading the prepper self sufficiency messages that many other writers have spoken about, but with no actual road map to get there. A wonderful addition to this book is to join From the Field TV, which is Curtis' subscription forum website, where he posts helpful farming/gardening videos, answers reader questions, and goes on wonderful stream of consciousness discussions on resisting the efforts of bureaucrats, mostly Canadian and US, to try to force farmers off their land into cities. If you have any desire to know where your food comes from, be self sufficient, and thus not at the whims of big AG, this is the book for you. Again, Curtis is super entertaining and likable on video, so I encourage you to also search out his YouTube and other online content. Best farming/gardening writer out there today.

This is written with clear steps & instructions for everything. How to find & negotiate land to use, how to get funding, what to plant, how much to plant, how to sell to farmers markets & restaurants, How to set up temporary green houses, how to DIY processing equipment, how much $ to expect to net depending on plot size, how to plant for efficient harvest, etc.So many books focus only on the plants (and their advice is really only good for nearby the growing zone of the author), but this is all the mechanics & logistics of the business.The author is in Canada, & I'm in Alabama, so I have to adapt the planting times, but all of the how-to advice is transferrable to all growing zones.I highly recommend this as well as the author's video tutorials.

Curtis Stone is a legend in the small scale intensive farmer space. His book has information not found elsewhere online or on Youtube; it’s money well spent. Curtis has written an honest, readable, and highly pragmatic manual on the how, what, where, when, and why of urban farming. Details on farming as well as from a systems-level and financial standpoint are highly appreciated and extremely helpful. This is something you don’t hear many farmers talk in detail about, making the information in this book all the more valuable and rare. A true gem.

expected more info on growing

We recently built a hoop house and have future plans of selling produce. We aren't raking in the $ yet as we're just getting started with feeding our own family with our home grown goods, but if we ever decide to do sell produce, I can thank Curtis Stone for writing this book. He lays everything out and I mean EVERYTHING. Curtis isn't keeping any secrets to himself. He seems to be very concerned about food production or processing and wants everyone to grow their own food. He lays out all the steps and things to think about when selling produce. It's an educational and fantastic and easy read. He's also got YouTube videos you should check out. I love this guy. I made my husband and kids watch the videos and now one of our kids is interested in growing her own food to sell and got herself her own little greenhouse.

Man knows his stuff

There are a lot of gardening books out there, and this book could help you a bit with that, but what this book gives you an overview of how to start a farming business.The level of detail for producing as efficiently as possible is here. The author does not want to spend time weeding, and has developed a system that works for him to minimize the unnecessary tasks. It is littered with real examples with actual numbers that Curtis Stone has done. Most authors shy away from giving financial details to this degree. Of course each situation is different, but giving real world examples I believe is very helpful.If you want a book that just deals with growing vegetables, look elsewhere. There is a little bit of that in here, but this book is about high production in minimal space. Becoming efficient in a number of ways to alleviate time for the important tasks. Finding markets and the thought process of decisions of what items to grow.I am happy to add this book to my library, and if you are after any of the things mentioned above, you will as well.

Fantastic book. Great details about running an urban farm with an emphasis on time management. From the start of your farm to the start of your growing season through harvest and sales - this book covers it all quite well.It is well written and easy to understand. The graphs and charts are very helpful to the reader.I am a big fan of Curtis Stone and love his YouTube channel too. If you are interested in starting an urban farm, small farm or just a garden to feed your family, this is the book for you. I highly recommend it!

Es un libro correcto para comenzar en el huerto, su enfoque principal es en área urbana y para un mercado más formal pero las técnicas y consejos pueden ayudar a los que les interese empezar un huerto en zonas más rurales, yo lo compré para analizar sus estrategias en un contexto mexicano.

Great value for money, well written, easy to read , easy on the eyes, full of great information. As described. Delivery chap very polite and delivered on time. Excellent service.

A lot of useful information in this book, well done Curtis!

This book was really handy. The author is very business minded so expect a lot more numbers and charts than you’d usually find in a gardening book. But that’s exactly what you need if you’re thinking of market gardening. It was very inspiring to me how it was all broken down into simple steps and made very relatable to where I am, starting small and probably having to stay small.There are a few mistakes that more careful editing would catch, but I can’t complain at all about the information that is jam packed in here. If you’re at all interested in making a profit off of your passion for gardening and growing good food, I’d say this is a good book to have in your library.

It was a great eye opening. Thank younger sharing your knowledge. The world needs more heroes like you. I am a newbie. I will try implementing your methods. However, I need to choose crops for my climate and country.