an ear of corn quite a ways, elaborate children’s playgrounds, a live pumpkin princess, and a you-pick pumpkin patch. Some have pig races, a petting zoo, play areas for children, and picnic areas. Some are open after dark for Flashlight Nights. Admission to all entertainment events is usually between $8.00 and $20.00.
The elaborately designed mazes used to be hacked out of a main field using machetes, and that was exhausting work. Now farmers have wised up and use spatial management computer software to fashion the designs. When the corn is about two feet tall, the maze design is transferred to the cornfield using global positioning technology. The corn is then mowed or tilled under, but some farmers use herbicides to kill the corn plants for paths wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs and strollers.
A corn maze in Delinsdorf, Germany.
Photo by Karsten H. Eggert.
Maze operators develop yearly themes for their mazes, like Wild West, Egyptian, or political candidates, and they can tie quizzes into the themes. Of course the maze themes can only be viewed from the air, but customers are usually given a map so they can guide themselves around. There are usually Maze Masters to help people around the maze so we don’t read headlines like “Five South Korean Tourists Go Missing in Hilary Clinton Corn Maze; Helicopters Called In.” Think that’s just my imagination running rampant? Well, the Adventure Acres corn maze in Bellbrook, Ohio, just outside of Dayton, consists of sixty-two acres of corn maze with over eight miles of trails!
Value-added products for sale at the maze could include flavored popcorns (cheddar, caramel, chocolate, brown sugar and cinnamon, coconut, toffee, curry cashew, red chile—the list is very long), and custom popcorn boxes and bags with your microfarm name and logo on them. Since this microfarm will be both agritourism and agritainment, you should have the usual souvenirs for sale (they double as promotional items): popcorn maze postcards, aerial photos, stickers, coasters, caps, t-shirts, mugs, and whatever else crazy you can think up.
Brett Herbst is probably the king of corn mazes; he began designing them in 1996 and now has his own maze design and consultation business. “People don’t pay to walk through a corn maze,” he says. “People are paying for a memorable experience. No one ever comes to a corn maze alone.” When you’re with a group, “You have to make all these decisions together and you know that everybody is going to be wrong at some point in time going through the maze. That’s what relationships are built on—sharing ideas and thoughts and challenging one another.”
Of course, these are just fantasies until someone takes an idea and runs with it. I’ve written these with a bit of whimsy, but I think a microfarmer should have a good sense of humor. Perhaps one of these ideas will inspire a future microfarmer to come up with a truly imaginative—and profitable—farming operation. If you do that, you’d better learn how to sell what you produce.
Possible Microfarming Plants and Animals
I use the word “possible” here rather than “recommended” because each microfarmer must decide personally which crops best fit his or her plan. I chose these particular crops because their higher value and growing habits make them suitable for smaller farming operations. It doesn’t make much sense to grow field crops or grain crops on a microfarm because their value depends on greater production than a microfarmer could ever accomplish. The crops are in alphabetical order.
BABY GINGER
About the Crop
Baby ginger is precisely what its name implies: immature rhizomes that lack the tough skin and potent pungency of store-bought mature ginger. It does not require peeling and does not have a fibrous center, so cooks can simply chop it and use it. Baby ginger as a culinary ingredient is unfamiliar to most consumers and even chefs, so let them know in advance about your coming crop to get them interested in future purchases. During harvest time, it’s important to educate the public on using and storing the baby ginger that they purchase, so you should create an information sheet with basic uses and a couple of recipes.
Ginger is part of the genus Zingiber, which has about a hundred species of perennial plants, many of which are grown as ornamentals. The different species of Zingiber have many culinary uses—for example, the shoots and flowers of Zingiber mioga, the Japanese ginger, are used fresh or pickled as a flavoring in Japanese cuisine, such as the familiar accompaniment to sushi and sashimi.
The principal cultivated ginger is Zingiber officinale, native to tropical Asia, which is a deciduous perennial with thick, branching rhizomes, upright stems, and long, pointed leaves. The flowers are quite lovely—yellow-green with purple and yellow lips. The plant can grow up to four feet tall. The flavor and heat levels vary greatly, as Australian spice expert Ian Hemphill notes: “The flavour will be similarly tangy, sweet, spicy and warm to hot, depending upon when it has been harvested, as to a large degree early harvested [baby] ginger is sweet and tender, while later harvested rhizomes are more fibrous and pungent.”
The volatile oils causing the pungency are gingerols and shogaols. The shogaols appear when ginger is dried and they are much more pungent, so dried ginger is hotter than fresh. It also has less water, so the pungency is more concentrated. Gingerol is commonly used to treat poor digestion, heartburn, and motion sickness.
Baby ginger.
Photo courtesy of Sunbelt Archives.
Pros
Basically, for ginger, the pros are the value-added products that come from the crop. There are two methods of processing ginger to make value-added products. One is to preserve it in brine, syrup, or in crystallized form. The other is to dry it and then, optionally, to grind it into powder.
Pickled ginger is made from fresh rhizomes that are sliced as thin as paper, then placed in a vinegar solution. The acetic acid in the vinegar turns the ginger pink. In Japan, pickled ginger is known as gari and it is considered a palate refresher between courses, and it is commonly served with sushi and sashimi.
Dried ginger is made from the more mature rhizomes, which are peeled by the farmers and left to dry in the sun, which is not the cleanest method. Increasingly, more ginger is being furnace-dried. After drying, the rhizomes are ground into powder and bottled.
Cons
The plants require not only a long growing period (which, on a farm, especially a microfarm, can easily monopolize valuable real estate) but also ample amounts of water and just the right soil temperature. Baby ginger is fussy and it likes constant warmth but not excessive heat. The plant generally requires soil between fifty and ninety degrees, which essentially means that the east coast states are not the best place to grow it unless you use a greenhouse, tunnels, or hoop houses. The late winter and early spring months are too cold, and the summers are much too hot. It is possible to grow baby ginger in containers, but the yields are too small to make this practical.
The storage time after harvest is much shorter for baby ginger than it is for mature ginger, which can often last for months in the store or your refrigerator. Baby ginger can be stored at room temperature for only about two to three weeks after harvest. This limits the market season, but also means that competition for the crop is small and it cannot be shipped from overseas producers. Ginger is one of the most fragile of all the spicy ingredients because its heat fades so quickly, especially after processing and when cooked.
Baby
