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There are certainly legal crops that can be very lucrative. We have an acquaintance that claims to have cleared $16k/acre on 3 acres of strawberries. I called and talked to one of the agricultural gurus at LSU and he confirmed to me that you can, on a good year, harvest 1,500 to 2,000 flats of strawberries on an acre of land. Last year, Louisiana-grown strawberries sold for $22/flat here. After calculating input costs and labor, it is entirely probable that the acquaintance was being truthful.

This year we are probably going to try some strawberries, but no more than an acre and probably more like 1/4 acre. Reliable labor is nearly non-existent around here so we don't want to get into a situation that we can't handle by ourselves, if necessary.

Gardengirl, yesterday we ventured into Lowe's for some plumbing supplies and they had just received a beautiful shipment of fruit plants. In fact, they were still boxed and waiting to be put out on display. We dug in and got 4 blueberry bushes, 2 Thompson seedless grapes and 2 raspberries. I also got a new fig variety at the Ag show 2 weeks ago. I really can't wait to get these set out, and if you have any information that wouldn't take long to share, I'm all ears!