How To Make Money From Gardening?

[rainbowgardener]

agree with soil... I sell veggie, herb, flower starts every spring for a fund raiser for my church. If you have nice looking, healthy starts, there is a good market for them. I sell mine for just one $ a piece, because I'm not really trying to make money off them. People get a nice, well started plant for a cheap price and I raise $200 - $250 each spring that way just off the extras from what I start for myself (I can't stand to throw seedlings away! ). But they mostly only sell if I am standing there, explaining to people what they are and what kind of care they need. I have tried having written materials there and it doesn't work very well. People don't want to read about it (even in my very educated, readerly congregation), they want you to tell them.

[Imperialboy]

agree with soil... I sell veggie, herb, flower starts every spring for a fund raiser for my church. If you have nice looking, healthy starts, there is a good market for them. I sell mine for just one $ a piece, because I'm not really trying to make money off them. People get a nice, well started plant for a cheap price and I raise $200 - $250 each spring that way just off the extras from what I start for myself (I can't stand to throw seedlings away! ). But they mostly only sell if I am standing there, explaining to people what they are and what kind of care they need. I have tried having written materials there and it doesn't work very well. People don't want to read about it (even in my very educated, readerly congregation), they want you to tell them.

And where do you go to sell these starts? Farmer's Market?
Again, don't want to go through legal issues, licenses and all that. Would seedlings like Japanese Maples or herbs need licenses? Having trouble looking up info for the Bay Area in California.

Or I might just sell by using my driveway and advertsiing. or going door to door to neighbors. Sell to friends and expan my word of mouth.

[farmerlon]

Anymore get started ideas?

Don't take this the wrong way, but you might just have to get started, in order to get started.
It sounds to me like you need to start growing and experimenting, and that might be the best way to figure out what direction you want to go in.
Start small, that way you can make all the mistakes that just about any "startup" will make, with minimal risk.

Money (the "bottom line") is always important in business. But, often, if you focus more on finding the growing and selling plan that you enjoy, and offer a top-quality product with top-quality service, the money will follow along naturally.

[Imperialboy]

Anymore get started ideas?

Don't take this the wrong way, but you might just have to get started, in order to get started.
It sounds to me like you need to start growing and experimenting, and that might be the best way to figure out what direction you want to go in.
Start small, that way you can make all the mistakes that just about any "startup" will make, with minimal risk.

Money (the "bottom line") is always important in business. But, often, if you focus more on finding the growing and selling plan that you enjoy, and offer a top-quality product with top-quality service, the money will follow along naturally.

I'll beginning that. Contacting local nurseries on what they have and such that I need. I'll start off with Japanese Maples and popular Herb types.

[cynthia_h]

agree with soil... I sell veggie, herb, flower starts every spring for a fund raiser for my church. If you have nice looking, healthy starts, there is a good market for them. I sell mine for just one $ a piece, because I'm not really trying to make money off them. People get a nice, well started plant for a cheap price and I raise $200 - $250 each spring that way just off the extras from what I start for myself (I can't stand to throw seedlings away! ). ...

And where do you go to sell these starts? Farmer's Market?
Again, don't want to go through legal issues, licenses and all that. Would seedlings like Japanese Maples or herbs need licenses? Having trouble looking up info for the Bay Area in California.

Or I might just sell by using my driveway and advertsiing. or going door to door to neighbors. Sell to friends and expan my word of mouth.

Rainbow sells the seedlings at a "fund raiser for [my] church." It's not a farmer's market; it's a church function. Churches operate under a different set of rules from farmer's markets, because churches are non-profit organizations where no individual benefits from the proceeds of sales.

There is no such place, unfortunately, as "the Bay Area" when looking up regulations. First check your county Agriculture Department and/or Department of Weights and Measures. The nine core Bay Area counties are:

Alameda
Contra Costa
Marin
Napa
San Francisco
San Mateo
Santa Clara
Solano
Sonoma

Then check city ordinances. Many regulations are available online these days, so a search based on criteria like

"farmer's market license selling" or "selling vegetables Contra Costa County"

will return information on the subject. Then, based on how many hits the search returns, narrow the search criteria.

I strongly recommend that you not try to do this under the table or in any "outside the confines of the law" method. I've lived in the Bay Area quite a while (much longer than I had ever planned to, to tell the truth) and been a "foodie" the whole time, mostly because I have to do lots of scratch cooking.

In that time, there have been shut-downs of restaurants where health certificates were found to be out of date, a shut-down of at least one restaurant where customers contracted disease from fresh salsa left on their table from previous customers b/c neither the management nor the staff knew any better: no food-handler training certificates at all. Some jail time was also involved.

The current food cart controversies in San Francisco have many roots, but again licenses are one of them.

Cynthia

[lily51]

Anything with agriculture takes work.
Speaking from experience to let you know what having more than just a garden is like.....
We had a small strawberry business for 8 years...1.25 acres. It was work, from planting, to weeding, to picking. The fun part was the selling to customers, taking orders, talking to people. I also grew 1/4 acre of statice that I started in small greenhouse, and sold as dried flowers to craft stores.

The quarter acre was do-able by myself; the 1.25 was not. We hired a couple teenagers each year to help out, plus had some pick-your-own.
The trouble with having the public come in to do so is that some don't know what they're doing, overlook good produce, don't care where they step, etc, etc.

Find your specialized niche and see what happens. Many ag business start small and grow and grow! You never know until you try.

[Imperialboy]

I can't even find information about legal issues and laws. I have emailed a couple different people though from the sites I did find.

I think I'll be getting into selling starts of herbs and different types of Japanese Maples.