After making the initial decision to jump into the hemp business, the next step included deciding how much to invest. Investment in this case not only meant money, but also time and land. Using land to grow hemp meant loosing feed, which meant buying feed, or at least not selling as much. All roads eventually led back to how much we could afford–money. Honestly, I voted to grow a few plants and see how we did. Larry and Robby, however, declared this a “make it or break it year.” Bottom line, cow prices remained down and with hay prices yet to be seen, we had to make this work. Those of you in agriculture know what I’m talking about. If it seems a little desperate it’s because that’s exactly what it was.
After excruciating planning and three way debates on how to make the most out of very little, we came up with a plan of attack. We decided to plant fifty acres, half right into the ground and half started in a greenhouse. We couldn’t afford feminized seeds, so we would have to plant twice as many seeds as we needed. Now all we needed was a greenhouse.
Luckily, we had an old barn that didn’t have a purpose at the time. Well, one side was going to be used to lamb, but that was easily relocated.
We set to work gutting the inside, stabilizing it as much as possible, tearing off the roof, and putting up plastic. Luckily, we had some relatives who were willing to trade work for grazing and Rob had a couple friends willing to put in countless manual labor hours. With the greenhouse complete, the next daunting task-finding seeds-loomed in front of us.
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