I am not suggesting that you turn your garden into a business (though that is up to you of course), but I want to point out how your garden can help to pay for itself. Of course if you grow a substantial amount of food, it already does this (at least if you don\u2019t keep buying stuff for it), but there are actually quite a few ways your garden can help to support you financially. Usually the hard part isn\u2019t producing something to sell, but finding somewhere to sell it (Craigslist and Ebay can be very useful for this.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vegetables <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A large vegetable garden can produce a lot of food over the\nsummer months and you could sell the surplus for income (this is a cottage\ngarden tradition in fact). You could also arrange to grow vegetables for a few\nneighbors for a pre-arranged weekly fee. This could be a good way to learn the\nropes if you want to eventually become a real farmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We need to develop a\nnew kind of gardening that is somewhere between market gardening and\ntraditional home vegetable gardening. Producing food doesn\u2019t just have to be\nthe domain of the farmer with hundreds of acres, or even the market gardener\nwith 2 or 5 acres. It\u2019s been estimated that you could make a living from\nintensively cultivating only \u215b of an acre. You just need to use the right\ntechniques and the right crops (Tomato, Lettuce, Garlic and others). You might\nalso concentrate on the more expensive luxury crops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fruit <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You could also sell fruit (which takes even less work than\nvegetables), in fact this could be a good way to dispose of the over abundance\nof fruit that comes from getting too interested in fruiting plants. A few\nproductive fruit trees can give you a lot of fruit in a short time. Make sure\nyou choose the best-flavored highest quality varieties and you should have no\ntrouble selling any fruit you can produce. You could also dry fruit for selling\nlater when prices may be higher. To add even more value you could make\npreserves or pies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Salad mix <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Salad mix is a high value intensive crop that doesn\u2019t\nrequire much space to grow. I have known a couple of people who made a good\nliving growing edible flowers for chic restaurants (an ex-girlfriend sold her\nmix of salad greens, flowers and weeds for $30.00 a pound in the 1980\u2019s).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Berries <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A high value crop of berries will only take a couple of\nyears to get going. As with tree fruit you could sell fresh or dried fruit, or\nmake preserves or pies (sell to coffee shops).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Herbs <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This could be culinary herbs, but it may be more profitable\nto go for the more specialized medicinal herbs (fresh or dry). You could grow\nand dry herbs for making tea, or get equipped to make your own tea bags (make\nyour own tea blends and put them in fancy boxes). You could also add value to\nyour medicinal herbs by making salves, tinctures, essential oils and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mushrooms <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mushrooms and other fungi might be grown on a small scale,\nindoors or out and could provide you with a high value crop. If you are\nsuccessful at this, you might also sell spawn of various edible species so\npeople can grow their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chickens <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Grow your own chicken feed and sell eggs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Seed sprouts.\nMicro-greens <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Save your own seeds and use them to grow these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cut \ufb02owers <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Another easy one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Food stall <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You could also sell all of the above foods (and other\nproducts) at your local flea market, or set up a roadside stand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Craft materials <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Basket Willows are easy to grow and are in demand from\ncrafts people. Bamboo canes could be sold to gardeners and for use in crafts,\nThere are also other craft products you could grow: dried flowers, dye plants,\ncoppiced shoots and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bamboo <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bamboo is easy to grow yet plants are expensive to buy. It\nwouldn\u2019t take long to build up enough stock to sell. You could even offer an\ninvasive bamboo removal service (then pot it up and sell it). You could also\nproduce canes for gardeners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ornamental plants <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hobby ornamentals such as Dahlias, Orchids, Begonias, Iris\nand others offer a lot of scope for sales. You have to be interested in the\nplants of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Honey <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bees help out with pollination in the garden and can provide\nyou with honey without asking for much in return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wine <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Many fruits can be used to make wine, not just grapes. There\nwould no doubt be a market for some of the more unusual ones. Get adventurous\nand add herbs, flowers, fruits, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Smoking materials <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The most obvious smoking materials, Cannabis and Tobacco are generally illegal to sell, even if they are legal to grow, because of taxation issues. However there are lots of other herbs that can be used to make interesting herbal smoking mixtures. You could make some with a base of tobacco for cigarette smokers (probably illegal, and some without. You might also try making herbal smoking mixtures from Bearberry, Mullein, Coltsfoot, Mint and other herbs. I would find this quite fascinating, if it wasn\u2019t for the fact that I don\u2019t like to get smoke in my lungs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think you could make a serious business by flavoring cannabis with various herbs (I don’t know enough about this to know if anyone has already done it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seeds <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sell your own locally produced and adapted seed from\nheirloom and unusual varieties. If you save your own vegetable seed you usually\nhave a surplus anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your garden contains a lot of unusual edibles, you could allow them to produce seed and collect it for sale. You can also pot up volunteers to sell _ I just found Spearmint seedlings in my garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seedlings <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are already growing vegetable and herb seedlings for\nyour own use, you might also grow extra plants to sell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have useful plants that produce short lived, large\nseeds (Chestnuts, Hazels, Walnuts) you could grow seedlings for sale. You might\nalso be able to pot up self-sown seedlings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Propagating plants <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Many plants are easily raised from cuttings, layering and\ndivision. You could make money every year by propagating food plants,\nespecially the more unusual cultivars. If you get into propagating perennials\nand woody plants from seed then there is no limit to what you can do. If more\npeople did this many useful plants could become better known and more widely\navailable. Craigslist.com is a fantastic resource for selling plants as it can\nput you in touch with buyers of even the most obscure things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Gardening supplies <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have a big truck you could find a good source for\nmanure, compost, mulch, shredded bark and supply less mobile gardeners with\nthese important materials. You might also find a source of used fence boards\n(contact fencing contractors) and other recycled stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Garden advisor <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We need a new type of hands-on gardener\/small\nfarmer\/consultant, ready to share knowledge with neighbors and help them to\ngrow more of their own food and make city neighborhoods blossom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You could take this one step further and advise people on\ndecreasing their consumption and greening their homes and lives. To help them\nto integrate not only growing the new food garden, but also insulating the\nhouse, photovoltaics, solar hot water, vegetable garden, edible landscape,\ngreenhouse, gray water treatment, rainwater harvesting, composting toilets and\nmore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once your garden is sufficiently developed you could teach\nothers how to plant and maintain this kind of garden. This could tie in well\nwith selling surplus useful plants. Don\u2019t do this until you have gained\nsufficient knowledge though, there are a lot more people who like the idea of\nbeing teachers, than there are people worth listening to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"