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How to Make Money at Home Growing Small Landscape Plants on 1/20 Acre or Less

Aug 5, 2010 Wholesale Cake Boxes

Small town, big town, it doesn’t matter, if you have a small area in your backyard that you can use for planting, then you can make money growing small plants at home. Actually you can make pretty good money on 1/40 of one acre. That’s an area about 30 feet by 40 feet.

You will be amazed at how many plants you can fit in an area that small, and at how much money you can make. Even apartment dwellers can do this! If you live in an apartment, just to get a feel for how fun and rewarding a tiny nursery can be, find somebody with a little piece of ground that they will either let you use, let you rent it, or do a joint venture with you.

Is there really a market for small plants? The market is huge, something like 4 billion dollars last year alone, and the demand is tremendous. As a small grower, you have a tremendous advantage over the larger nurseries, their overhead is very high. As a backyard grower, yours will be almost nothing.

You might be asking; “I live in a small town in a rural area, how many plants can I really sell?”

Tens of thousands if you want to. Most people don’t realize it, but large wholesale growers are the largest buyers of small plants in the country. They sell so many plants that they just can not produce them fast enough themselves, so they buy them from wherever they can find them. Just pack them up in a cardboard box and ship them anywhere you want.

I routinely buy large quantities of small plants and have them shipped thousands of miles to my house. Why do I buy plants if I know how to grow them myself? There are a lot of reasons, but one is because I am impatient and don’t like to grow Japanese Maples from seed. I can buy Japanese Maple seedlings for as little as 75 cents and all I have to do is pot them up and watch them grow.

I also buy large quantities of flowering shrubs that I would like to start propagating myself. I buy them for 50 cents, pot them up, and often sell them the next year for $4.97. But in the meantime I take cuttings from them to propagate for next year’s crop. Then I never have to buy that variety again.

Those are the same reasons that many wholesale nurseries are always looking for great deals on small plants. When they find someone like you, growing in their backyard, they are delighted because they know they can buy what they need for less money from a small backyard grower than they can if they buy from a large nursery.

It only stands to reason, your overhead is almost nothing, you don’t have to raise the price of your plants to pay for buildings, hundreds of acres of land, trucks, tractors, and dozens of employees.

How much money do you need to get started?

Almost none. All you have to do is root some cuttings, and you’re on your way! There are dozens of easy plant propagation techniques that are so easy to learn that young children can do them, and with great success I might add.

This propagation information is available to you free of charge at www.freeplants.com

The size of the area you need to get started is really up to you, but an area about the size of a picnic table is a start. I’m serious. I root my cuttings in flats that are about 12” by 15”, and can get between 100 and 150 cuttings per flat. In an area about the size of a picnic table you should be able to root several thousand cuttings at a time.

And guess what? As soon as they are well rooted, they have a value and can be sold immediately! Isn’t that cool? Typically a rooted cutting is worth about 50 cents. Let’s see now, 1500 cuttings at 50 cents each, that’s $750.!!! Wow!!! The wheels should be turning now.

But you don’t have to sell 50 cent plants. You can grow them until they’re bigger and get more money for them. That’s what I do, I pot them up in small pots and they sell like crazy right from my driveway at $4.97 each.

This spring we sold over $25,000 worth of $4.97 plants right from our driveway. One of the people that bought my Backyard Nursery E-book held a sale this spring and sold $2,800 worth of plants her first weekend. She was ecstatic! Of course we also sold plants for much more than that. I used to grow Japanese Red Maples and we sold those for $45 each, and they sold like hot cakes!

This is one of the most fun and rewarding home businesses you could ever get involved in. My kids have learned work ethics, the value of a dollar, and skills that will last them a lifetime. Any time they needed a little extra money all they had to do was step out the back door and earn the money they needed.

It costs very little to get started, and the rewards can be quite high. It’s certainly not a get rich quick plan (because there is no such thing!), but plenty of people have done very well in the nursery business. All it takes is determination and hard work. You can learn it as you go along. It’s much easier than you think.

A Pet Business Sector That’s Growing by Leaps and Bounds – Cats

May 30, 2010 American Bakery

As I discuss in my article “Pets Are Big Business,” Americans are more eager than ever before to lavish their beloved “furry children” with products and services that were unavailable just a few years ago.

Here’s another trend that spells opportunity: a growing percentage of pets in America are cats. Yes, cats now outnumber dogs. This trend is driven by a number of factors:

–Americans have busier lifestyles, with fewer children in the family, and pets fill the void (with cats increasingly being the pet of choice).
–More homes are empty of people during the day (and cats are better than dogs at being left alone).
–Landlords who once would’ve forbidden all pets are more likely to accept cats.
–More pets are being kept indoors, and cats are more adaptable to an indoor lifestyle.
–As the human population ages, more older people are looking for furry companionship, and cats are easier for seniors to care for.

This is a trend with no end in sight, which presents an opportunity to put more emphasis on cat products and services. Consider just a few possibilities:

–Cat houses, trees, swings, and other elaborate cat play equipment. Some people have a family room or game room with a large amount of space devoted to such things. An entrepreneur with handy skills could provide ready-made products and/or plans for do-it-yourselfers. Good-quality cat toys will always be in demand.
–Cat photography and portraiture. Just as some photographers specialize in photographing, painting, and drawing children, an entrepreneur with a love of cats could carve out a niche in providing a photography service for cats. How about a mobile photography service? Most cats don’t like to ride in cars.
–Cat-decorated stuff. A spinoff of the photography service could be a selection of items adorned with the cats’ pictures-mugs, bags, shirts, calendars, etc.
–Cat treats for senior cats. Less-active cats have special dietary needs; some senior cats have trouble chewing. You can find (or create) a recipe, find molds in cute, cat-related shapes, and start your own cat-goodie bakery. You can sell them online as well as to pet shops, boutiques, and veterinary offices.
–Cat day care or in-home visitation for people who don’t want to leave their cats alone, but don’t want to remove them from their familiar surroundings either.
–Cat wearables. Cats generally aren’t as agreeable to wearing human-type clothing as dogs are, but many people buy fancy collars for their cats. Breakaway collars and glow-in-the-dark tags are evidence of cat owners’ concern for their pets’ safety.
–Cat breeding, if you’re passionate about a particular breed of cats. Just be sure to learn everything you can about breeding to make sure you raise healthy cats.

And when you’re ready to market your new “catty” business, be sure to work with a copywriter who shares your passion for cats. Best of success in your cat-pampering purr-suits!

GROWING IN POPULARITY

May 27, 2010 Bakery House

GROWING IN POPULARITY
Sometimes to help your community, you’ve got to be willing to get your hands dirty. According to David Schrock-Shenk, founder of Elkhart County Works Together, that’s exactly the idea behind the growing popularity of community gardening projects in the Goshen area.

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How to Make Money at Home Growing Small Landscape Plants on 1/20 Acre or Less

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