Posts

Where to buy a compact tractor in Portugal

As much as possible I want work on the farm to be done manually, but some jobs need to be completed quickly or are just too big to be done manually. My thoughts on whether to invest in a tractor is a topic for another post, but having decided to get a tractor now I need to find a good deal. I don't know anything about tractors so there's a lot to learn... Should I get a new or used tractor? The first decision is whether to buy a new or second hand tractor. Naturally a used tractor seems like a good choice to start my tractor journey with a smaller investment. OLX is my go-to as a second hand market although I've been told that Facebooks marketplace in Portgual is bigger.  OLX has a section just for tractors with a lot to chose from. The first thing that I noticed was that used tractors are generally old, on average much older than used cars. While I did find one compact tractor with only 95 hours on the clock, that's the exception. 20 years seems to be about the age th...

Goals for the farm in 2021

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I'm only 7 weeks into being a farmer and it's August already, so with only 4 months to go the goals for 2021 will be modest. There is very little "farm" setup at the moment and therefore the focus will be on creating beds and installing infrastructure. But of course I also want to start growing! The Vision I would like to put this area of the lower field into vegetable production, following the principles of sustainable no-dig farming. It measures roughly 10m x 50m, so 500m 2 or 1/8 th of an acre. The crops planted would be a mix of longer cycle staple crops and shorted cycle vegetables. I plan to layout the vegetable production using the popular market garden system of 75cm wide beds and 45cm wide paths. I would like each bed to be 13.3m long to give an area of 10m 2 , which is a convenient round number for crop planning.  Beds could be oriented NE-SW, which follows drainage towards the river at the south of the field, or NW-SE which runs across the slight gradient...