33: How to Plan Your Dream Farm with Shelby DeVore
Shelby DeVore shares her passion for homesteading and farming, and provides valuable tips and advice on how to get started on your own journey. With over 20 years of experience, Shelby's expertise and enthusiasm shine through as she helps listeners grow better gardens, raise livestock, and master traditional skills. From debunking misconceptions about needing a lot of land to get started to cautioning beginners about unreliable sources of information, Shelby's practical advice and encouragement make homesteading accessible and addictive. Tune in to this podcast to learn how to simplify your life, embrace a more traditional lifestyle, and cultivate your own thriving farm.
In this episode we cover:
How much land you need to start farming (Hint: It's much smaller than you think!)
The first step someone should take once they decide that they want to farm
A common mistake to avoid that people make when they decide they want to farm
Shelby's go-to recommendation for how beginners should get started
Burnout with farming and homesteading: Is that a real thing? How can it be avoided?
Advice Shelby would give to someone that is interested in starting a farm but isn't sure if it's the right decision for them or not
Summary
The art of homesteading and farming has been lost over the generations, but Shelby DeVore, founder of the Garden Farm Thrive Academy and CEO of Farminence, is on a mission to revive it. With over 20 years of experience in gardening, raising chickens, and practicing traditional skills, Shelby is helping people around the world grow better gardens, raise livestock, and master these lost skills through her online platform.
Her passion for homesteading and farming is evident in the way she speaks about it. In a recent episode of her podcast, HobbyScool, Shelby said, "We help literally tens of thousands of people a month grow better gardens, feel confident raising chickens and other livestock, and just really starting to learn how to master these traditional skills that over the generations have unfortunately kind of been lost. So we're just excited to be able to provide that type of information for people because it is something I'm very passionate about, and I know there's a lot of interest in it."
One of the biggest misconceptions about homesteading and farming is that you need a lot of land to get started. However, Shelby's parents raised about 90% of the fruits and vegetables they consumed throughout the year and about half of the meat they consumed on just under an acre of land. In fact, even a small space like a patio can be used to grow vegetables and herbs.
But where do you start? One of the biggest mistakes beginners make is trying to do too much too quickly. They start looking for inspiration and ideas online and end up becoming overwhelmed with all the things they have to take care of. To prevent this, Shelby recommends starting where you are and going through the Five Minute Refrigerator Challenge. This involves setting a timer for five minutes, going through your refrigerator and pantry, and writing down things you purchase on a weekly basis. Then, think about what you could produce at home based on that list.
Another mistake beginners make is getting bad advice from unreliable sources, especially on platforms like TikTok. Shelby cautions new people to be mindful of the resources they use to help them and to make sure they're getting information from a reputable source.
To prevent homesteading burnout, it is important to ease into it and not overwhelm oneself at first. It is also important to not be scared to fail and to think of it as a science experiment to learn from. When starting a farm, it is important to think through what will be the best option for oneself and their family, considering their current schedule and goals. It is also important to embrace a more traditional lifestyle and simplify one's life.
Technology and resources make homesteading easier than it was in the past, and it is important to take advantage of them. Starting small, such as growing a few tomato plants or herbs, is a good way to get started in homesteading.
The Garden Farm Thrive Academy is a membership program that offers resources and a community for those interested in homesteading. They also offer a free planning guide to help individuals plan out their farm goals. As Shelby says, "Because I think once you start, like I said, this is addicting, and you're going to figure out pretty quickly just how enjoyable this lifestyle can be. So if you're on the fence. Like, this is your sign that you need to get started."
Mentioned In This Episode
Where you can find Shelby: Website
Shelby's Free Gift: Planning Your Farm Guide
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Transcript:
[0:00:02] Dr. Destini Copp: And today my special guest is Shelby DeVore. Shelby is founder of the Garden Farm Thrive Academy and CEO of Farminence. She is a multi generational home setter with 20 plus years of experience in gardening, raising chickens, and practicing traditional skills. Shelby has a BS in Animal and Dairy Science, as well as an Ms in Agriculture. She spent six years teaching high school and college agricultural classes before starting her online business. And Shelby, thank you so much for joining me. I am super excited to chat with you today, and we're going to be talking about how to plan your dream farm, and I think you are the perfect person to walk us through this. So welcome to podcast.
[0:00:54] Shelby DeVore: Well, thank you. I'm super excited to be here. This is a topic that I am extremely passionate about, so I'm just ready to dig in. I think this is going to be great.
[0:01:06] Dr. Destini Copp: Now, before we get into all of the good questions that I have for you, can you tell the audience a little bit more about you and how you help people?
[0:01:16] Shelby DeVore: Sure. So, as you know, I am a multigenerational homesteader, and I have a ton of experience. I like to say I've dipped my toes into a lot of buckets. Right. Whether it's raising animals or growing vegetables, traditional skills, I've done all of the things, and even though I've been doing all of those things my entire life, I still find them extremely interesting, and I'm always learning something new, which is really fun. I taught high school and college AG classes for several years, and that was a really good outlook for me because I am super passionate about all things agriculture, whether it's gardening or animals or whatever, and I just kind of found after a while that it wasn't exactly what I wanted. I wanted to be able to reach more people. I knew that there are a lot of people out here that want to learn the type of skills that I am fortunate enough to have. So I decided to take my business online, and I did that in December of 2019 and never looked back. We help literally tens of thousands of people a month, grow better gardens, feel confident raising chickens and other livestock, and just really starting to learn how to master these traditional skills that over the generations have unfortunately kind of been lost. So we're just excited to be able to provide that type of information for people because it is something I'm very passionate about, and I know there's a lot of interest in it. So kind of what we do.
[0:03:26] Dr. Destini Copp: Well, I definitely want to delve in with this with you. I guess the first question I have as I was thinking through this is and I would love to kind of consider myself to be a farmer, but I don't have a lot of land, and I certainly don't have any expertise in this. Do you need a lot of land to get started, or what do you need should I say or should I ask there? What do I need to actually get started there?
[0:03:56] Shelby DeVore: So we get that question all of the time. And fortunately, homesteading, farming, gardening, you don't need as much space as you think you do. And I'll use myself as an example here. So growing up, my parents raised about 90% of the fruits and vegetables that we consumed throughout the year and about half of the meat that we consumed. And do you know how much space they had?
[0:04:32] Dr. Destini Copp: I hope it is similar to what I have, which isn't much.
[0:04:37] Shelby DeVore: They had just under an acre of land. Okay, so it's totally doable. You can go all in and still have very limited space. So when I went to college now this is really funny, I thought that everybody lived the way that I did when I was a kid because I'm from a very rural part of Tennessee, and most people garden, they raised their own livestock where I come from. So I just kind of thought that everybody did that. And I did not know until I had an apartment with I called it a patio garden. So I basically filled up my patio with container plants and had tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers and all sorts of herbs, and we got asked questions about that all of the time. People were like, you can grow your own food. And I just remember thinking, is this not normal? Most people, I guess, don't do this. And even the very limited space I have living in an apartment and just using the patio space made a big difference in the quality of food that I was eating. And then at the end of the week, how much I was spending on grocery bills for fresh food, right. Because I was able to produce a lot of it my own. So I think a lot of people, they're shocked at what you can do with a small space. You definitely don't have to have, like, a huge, sprawling farm to start gardening or even raising livestock, and especially learning traditional skills.
[0:06:37] Shelby DeVore: That's something that you can do pretty much anywhere.
[0:06:41] Dr. Destini Copp: So now that we've established that you can even do it if you're living in an apartment on your back patio or back porch or have an acre, which is what I have here. So I was excited to hear you say that. What would you say are the first steps that someone should take once they decide that, yes, this is something I want to do. I want to start a farm? How would you direct them?
[0:07:09] Shelby DeVore: So we actually have a very concrete method that we walk people through. And let me start off by saying this. One of the biggest mistakes that we see people make is they decide all of a sudden they want to grow a big garden. They want to have livestock, maybe chickens or something. And what they end up doing is they start looking for inspiration and ideas online. And I don't know if you've ever browsed a seed website for vegetable seeds, but I can definitely spend hours doing this and come up with a list of things that I want to grow that year. That's way too long. And I find a lot of new people fall into that trap and they get all of the things really quickly, and then they become overwhelmed and they're like, I have all of this stuff that I have to take care of. It's taking so much of my free time, I don't know what to do. So to kind of circumvent that and prevent that from happening, we like to recommend that people start where they are. And I know this sounds it's going to sound overly simple when I say it, but I promise it's such an easy exercise to go through, and it's going to give you a ton of clarity on what you should actually be trying to do on your farm. So my first recommendation would be to go through what we call the Five Minute Refrigerator Challenge. And essentially what you're going to do is you're going to set a timer on your phone and set it for five minutes, get a notepad out and go through your refrigerator. You can go through your pantry, stew and really think about things that you are purchasing on a weekly basis and just write a list out. That's all I want you to do is think about, well, I'm buying lettuce each week, or I'm buying fresh garlic each week, or maybe it's tomato sauce, maybe it's eggs.
[0:09:42] Shelby DeVore: Write those things down. Give yourself five minutes. Write it all down. When the timer goes off, you're going to look at your list and start to think through what it is that you could produce at home. So for me, we use a ton of tomato sauce and garlic and onions. Those are like staples for us in pretty much all of our meals. So each year when I'm planning my garden, like, I know that we need to be growing tomatoes, we need to be growing garlic, and we need to be growing onions. And that way when you do sit down to look at seeds or buy plants, you've got a set plan of what is going to make sense for you and your family. And you're not kind of just buying things willy nilly because it looks cool.
[0:10:40] Dr. Destini Copp: Well, as you were going through that, I was like, right now, oh, I buy this, I buy this. So I buy lettuce, the tomatoes, the eggs, the carrots, the cucumbers, the onions, bikini, squash and potatoes. Would that be kind of what I would start with, or is that too much?
[0:10:55] Shelby DeVore: You could definitely start with that. I would say if you're a complete beginner, as in, like, you've never grown anything before, I might stay like three to five and then kind of master those things and then go from there.
[0:11:18] Dr. Destini Copp: So you mentioned that one of the common mistakes that people make is just basically doing too much. Are there any other mistakes that you're seeing beginners make as they start on this journey?
[0:11:30] Shelby DeVore: Yeah, so definitely kind of putting too much on your plate. That's a big one. And then I find this is actually a pet peeve of mine and it's very frustrating for me. So I have a lot of formal education in gardening and raising livestock as well as tons of personal experience. And what I have found the past couple of years is especially on platforms like TikTok. TikTok is terrible. We see a lot of people giving out really bad advice. So one of the things that I would caution new people is just be mindful of resources that you're using to help you. Because like I said, we've seen bad advice and we've seen some things that are just flat out wrong and it can be hard to kind of tell the difference there. And so just make sure that you're looking getting information from a reputable source. And then I would say to kind of go off of the don't overwhelm yourself a little bit deeper is don't dip your toes into too many buckets at one time. So if you're brand new to this, we like to recommend gardening first. That seems to be like a good easy step. And then I will be honest with you, it sucks if you plant a garden and you don't get anything out of it. That's pretty lame.
[0:13:30] Shelby DeVore: But it's not the same type of feeling as, let's say you decide you want to get chickens and you go to tractor supply and you bring home ten baby chicks and you get really attached to them and then something happens to them and they die. That's a different level of disappointment. So we like to tell people to ease into gardening first, kind of get your feet wet with that, feel like you're mastering that and then you can go into livestock and it's going to feel a whole lot easier if you go that way.
[0:14:08] Dr. Destini Copp: So I think that's very good advice and I just wanted to go back to what you mentioned earlier about making sure that you're getting your information from a source that actually knows what they're talking about, somebody like you who has the education and the experience combined. I think that's a very important point there. So another question that I'm sure you get a lot is sometimes people get started in this and they don't realize maybe they're doing too much, like you said. So it becomes a lot more work than they anticipated. What about burnout with farming and homesteading? Is that something that people typically experience? And if so, how can they avoid that?
[0:14:59] Shelby DeVore: Yeah, so homesteading burnout is 100%, 100% a real thing. And this is something that, like you said, we get questions about pretty frequently. So to kind of prevent that, of course, my first piece of advice is definitely don't overwhelm yourself at first because a lot of people don't realize what all goes into having a garden or having chickens or learning how to can or how to make sourdough bread. And it all kind of comes back to like we're just unfortunately disconnected from those skills. And so people go into it and they don't really know what to expect. They kind of have like I call it like a pinterest outlook, right? So they have this vision in their head of what the end goal of everything is going to look like and they don't usually think about everything that's involved to reach that goal. So when it comes to homesteading burnout, I would say ease into it, don't be scared to fail. That's just part of it. We're working literally with nature, right? So if something happens and let's say you plant a bunch of tomato plants and they get a disease and they die and you don't get anything from them, don't let that feel like a disappointment. Think of it more as like a science experiment and think, okay, I did this, this and this, and these things did not work. So what do I need to change next time to try to make that work? And I find that's really helpful because part of the homesteading burnout that I see a lot of is people are working and doing all these things and then number one, they're overwhelmed and then whatever goal they were trying to reach, maybe they're not meeting that goal. So if they wanted to grow enough vegetables to cut their family's grocery bill in half, and they are trying different things in the garden and they're just not making headway, that's frustrating itself.
[0:17:42] Shelby DeVore: And then factor in all of the work that goes into it, it's easy to see how people can get burned out really fast. So I like to spin negative things into a positive. So think of it all like a big science experiment. If something doesn't work, how can you change it or change what you are doing to make it work next time?
[0:18:11] Dr. Destini Copp: And I love what you said about the Pinterest analogy. I think when we go on Pinterest and we see maybe a pantry or a fridge that has been stocked with all of our homegrown vegetables, we're like, oh yes, we definitely want that. But the reality is things are going to go wrong. And I'll just take a little bit of a tangent here. Back when 2020 happened, one of the kind of experience experiments that we did is we decided to do like a home garden. It's the first time we'd ever done it and we did have some success with it. We did get some tomatoes and stuff out of it, but we had a lot of failure. So I just want to go ahead and say that, but you're right, it's a learning opportunity.
[0:18:52] Shelby DeVore: Yeah, it definitely is. And I have found that the older I get, the longer I do this, I am still learning things. There's always something new to try. There's a new tomato variety to plant or a new type of pepper to try. There's literally endless options as far as continuing to learn in this lifestyle, which for me, I find it almost addicting, right? Like, I love to learn, so this actually allows me to kind of feed that need to constantly learn and constantly try new things.
[0:19:45] Dr. Destini Copp: So, Shelby, one last question I have for you is what advice would you give to someone that is interested in exploring this and starting a farm, but they're not sure if this is the right decision for them?
[0:20:02] Shelby DeVore: Yeah, so that's a really good question. I would just say take some time and think through what's going to be the best option for you and your family and think of it from the perspective of not just like, what can I do to save my family money, but also think about your current schedule. We hear from people all of the time, I don't know if I have time to do this. And doesn't gardening take up a ton of time and chickens? Doesn't it take a lot of time to keep chickens? And I will tell you, I actually like to do things the lazy way.
[0:20:57] Dr. Destini Copp: But you're not alone there.
[0:21:00] Shelby DeVore: If there's an easier way to do something, we are definitely taking advantage of that. I think we live in a very interesting time as far as homesteading because we do have a ton of technology and resources that can make this lifestyle a lot easier than it was, you know, 100, 200 years ago when everything was like very manual and you were doing things from hand and completely from scratch. So just kind of think through what your goals are and think about why you're interested in this lifestyle to begin with. Because if you dig down deep enough, it probably stems from an area of just wanting to simplify and kind of embrace just a more traditional lifestyle. And if that is something that feels important to you, then I would say 100%, this is the right thing for you to pursue.
[0:22:14] Dr. Destini Copp: I love that and kind of going back to our roots, digging in, simplifying our life. I think there's a lot of us out there who are interested in that. Before we wrap it up here today, any last minute tips for the audience?
[0:22:31] Shelby DeVore: I would just say if you're thinking about it and you're on the fence, I would encourage you to just start something, whether it's growing a few tomato plants or maybe growing some herbs in your kitchen. Because I think once you start, like I said, this is addicting and you're going to figure out pretty quickly just how enjoyable this lifestyle can be. So if you're on the fence. Like, this is your sign that you need to get started.
[0:23:06] Dr. Destini Copp: And I love that. Just starting small with a tomato plant or just growing some herbs that you use every day, like parsley, I'm assuming, or something like that.
[0:23:15] Shelby DeVore: Oh, yeah, totally.
[0:23:18] Dr. Destini Copp: Shelby, can you let the audience know where they can find you?
[0:23:22] Shelby DeVore: Yes. So I run a membership program called the Garden Farm Thrive Academy, and that's probably the best place to connect with me and my resources and the community. We also have a free guide for everybody that's listening. It is the planning your farm guide. And Destiny, I know you said you're going to link to this in the show notes so they can grab that guide and it's going to walk them through kind of the thought process of planning out what they actually want to accomplish with their farm.
[0:24:08] Dr. Destini Copp: Yes. We'll definitely make sure that those leads are in the show notes so folks can go there and find you and get more information. And Shelby, thank you so much for joining us and walking us through how to plan our dream farm. I really appreciate all of your insights and everything that you brought to the table today. No pun intended.
[0:24:32] Shelby DeVore: That was good. But yes. Thank you for having having me. Anytime.