Compact Farms

15 Proven Plans for Market Farms on 5 Acres or Less

By: Josh Volk, Michael Ableman - foreword

Narrated by: David Marantz

Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

Compact Farms is a guide for anyone dreaming of starting, expanding, or perfecting a profitable farming enterprise on five acres or less.

The farm plans explain how to harness an area's water supply, orientation, and geography in order to maximize efficiency and productivity while minimizing effort. Profiles of well-known farmers such as Eliot Coleman and Jean-Martin Fortier show that farming on a small scale in any region, in both urban and rural settings, can provide enough income to turn the endeavor from hobby to career. These real-life plans and down-and-dirty advice will equip you with everything you need to actually realize your farm dreams.

©2017 Josh Volk (P)2019 Tantor

Terrible narrator. Interesting, would be easier to read than listen to.

Terrible narrator. Would be easier to read than listen to. intro and outro are the most inspiring and best part, but all of the information is interesting.

good info

I've seen people complain about the robotic narrator, and yes he is very robotic. However I don't think the book was intended to be a "good story" as much as a reference/informational text. So with that in mind it's a good listen.

Great book if your thinking about starting a mini farm

I really enjoyed this book and will be getting a physical copy for sure. The outlines of successful farms across the country was interesting and insured geographical relevance. This definitely helped motivate me to start some serous planning

Very helpful

This book is filled with great information! But I really needed the physical references and ended up buying a hard copy. Really didn’t lend itself to the audio format as well as other books.

Interesting book, narrator botched it

The publisher had to spend an enormous amount of time searching the world for the absolutely worst narrator they could find. They succeeded. Monotone and unexcited about the material. Pauses in the wrong places. No road signs for we are moving to another section (though the director has some share in this)

The book is interesting and laid out well though it could be improved with some summary and comparison tables.

No attachments

I was excited to get this book, I had planned on getting it in paperback, but when I saw it on audible I was excited to listen while in the field. I thought it would also come with all the attached photos from the book, but nope! I feel like I wasted my money. It’s a great book, just wish I hadn’t got it on audible.

Ruined by Narrator

the narrator of the book reads like a robot. Seriously, I would have my MacBook read to me while I was in college and that's almost exactly what this guy sounds like. the author wastes a lot of time talking about introductory information that never relates back to the main point, and makes the same point over and over and over again. There isn't really that much interesting information to be gotten. By far the best thing I learned was the reference to "How to grow more vegetables" by John Jeavons. it's like me you are somewhere in between a serious Gardener and a hobby farmer, you're probably better off looking into the grow biointensive method then reading this snoozefest of a book.