Gardening for Profit
By Tim Walker
I guess if there is one thing we all wish we could do, it would be working at what we enjoy doing. Many folks get into gardening and growing things because they enjoy it. They like the feeling of closeness to something alive, fresh green and colorful. They enjoy watching plants grow from small seedlings or cuttings into mature plants that produce fruit, flowers or vegetables. Some of us like to see if we can produce a larger pumpkin or a giant rose - at least something bigger than the neighbors have. Some of us have a quizzical nature and like to experiment and to figure out how things work. Maybe some of you know how to mix a secret cocktail mixture of fertilizers and supplements that will give us plants of “Jack in the Beanstalk” proportions. For many of us, we like the tranquility of being outside or being in our garden alone and just with nature. Could it be possible to make a living out of this sideline? The answer is definitely yes!
Wouldn’t it be great to combine the love of being outdoors, nature and gardening with your sales or businesses skills and makes a good living at it as well?
Several years ago I met a man in Washington state who owned arguably the largest flower and greenhouse operation in the state. I was out visiting him on a sales call and queried him as to how he got to be that large and successful. He simply said, “hobby out of hand.”
I said, “Excuse me, I don’t quite understand.” “Well,” he said, “my grandfather started a roadside produce stand to sell fresh vegetables and flowers direct to the people passing by his farm. The hobby business soon became a real business and then as he grew older it became a “hobby out of hand.” That is when his father and the son of the original farmer took over. Years later the son, who was the father of the man that I knew and the original farmer’s grandson, took over the “hobby”. The son took it to another level with hard work and a full time effort to supply local stores and families. He took it from a hayseed corner produce stand to a real farm vegetable and flower greenhouse business. With an aggressive attitude and his business training, the grandson) the man I was now dealing with) took the business from a wholesale enterprise to be one of the largest and most recognized flower bedding plant suppliers in the Western United States. Now there were three generations of family in this ‘growing’ enterprise. If you saw this massive operation of possibly 50 acres of flowers grown indoors in glass greenhouses, you would be amazed at what a multi-million dollar “hobby” this had become. Yes you could call it a “hobby out of hand!”
You see they each had a vision of what the business was and where it was going and what it needed at that time. Business can be initiated from a simple need, a hobby, an interest, an idea or an invention and many other reasons, but the goal remains to provide a service or product that people will need or want.
Can you make money or a living from growing produce or flowers? Again the simple answer is absolutely yes. Let me pose a question to each of you. Have you ever gone into a store, any kind of store and asked for something they did not have? Maybe they ran out or just did not carry that item. It doesn’t matter. The point is they were unable to supply you with something you wanted or needed. Do you think you’re alone and it never happens to others? Of course not. I love to cook and many times I have gone to my local grocery store to pick up ingredients to create an Epicurean delight only to find they do not have what I need for that dish. Now I have to find a specialty store that carries the particular cut of meat that I need or that essential herb or vegetable I am looking for. Sometimes even the large grocery chains do not carry items such as mesclun lettuce, chicory leaves or pancetta ham. Now I have to look for a deli or European specialty shop that carries such items. I tried finding smoked paprika last year and I challenge you to find that at most typical food stores. I ended up buying it from an organic pepper farm. The point is, there is lots of room for growing specialized produce, herbs or flowers for commercial production and to make a profit doing it.
Don’t try to grow commodity items such as tomatoes, sweet peppers or potatoes because the large farms have that market sewed up and they get commodity prices for these. They are so large and mechanized that you simply cannot compete. Look for special things that no one is producing locally and is in demand.
How do you find out what is in demand? Well start by talking to the local grocery store manager, chefs at restaurants, flower shops, wholesalers, etc., and find out what is not readily available and that you could supply. What sort of quantities would they need and would it be all year round? What price range are they willing to pay for locally produced and fresh grown produce? What are they willing to pay if it is produced organically without pesticides? How much can you produce (space) and at what cost can you produce it and deliver it to market? How will you find your customers? Will it be yellow pages, internet, word of mouth or passing out flyers? Do you have enough money to get started, and indeed how much money do you need to get up and running?
The first thing you will need is a great business plan to answer all these types of questions and to plan and prepare for your business launch. No business fails because of hard work - it fails because of the things you did not think of or plan for! A great business plan does not need to be drafted by someone with a business degree from Harvard. In fact you are probably more suited to plan and prepare for this business simply because you’re doing it on a shoestring budget, very simply and with little help and pre conceived ideas. You do not have 17 employees and shareholders to worry about. You only need to worry about you, and more importantly, your customers. Sometimes clients can provide the biggest source of assistance and inspiration because they like to see small businesses succeed and often relate more to a small-owned enterprise than a large corporation. Many of your customers were in exactly the same boat as you only a few years ago. Often small business owners enjoy the opportunity to mentor another person and are only too happy to share the “good, the bad and the ugly” with another young entrepreneur.
What is it that you think you can grow or that is not being produced locally or economically? Pick five or six products, be they specialty herbs, medicinal flowers, cut flowers, trees, grasses, vegetables, oil-producing plants and so on. Do you think you can learn to produce these economically enough and in large enough quantities to satisfy a select audience of customers? Here is the trick. Go through your seed catalogs or talk to someone who is producing these and could supply you with basic cuttings, plants or a mother plant that will allow you to reproduce that species on a cyclical basis year round.
Don’t forget, you’re going to lose most of your stock to sales, but you need to preserve enough material to reproduce and duplicate your inventory of stock. Sometimes this just means ordering more seed or taking more cuttings, but if it is a hybrid plant and not an inbred variety you may have difficulty in replicating that species and will need fresh material from which to propagate. Remember that as fast as you are selling (especially for spring sales) you need to be able to replenish your inventory in order to continue to keep stores, restaurants and so on satisfied, year round.
Do your homework. What is going to happen if you do not know how to grow these plants and they begin to die or look like they are breathing their last gasps of life? It is going to be a little harder to sell dying plants. Do some research on the proper cultural techniques of how to produce that species. Things like germination, feeding regime, harvesting, type of preferred soils, etc. Don’t wait until the plant is in the ground to find out how to care for it. Research the types of species best suited for your climate, hours of sunshine needed, special equipment required and so on. Look for economical ways to move the products from seedling or germination bench to planting area. If a wheelbarrow will suffice, great, or maybe an old child’s wagon adapted with a plywood deck will work. Maybe you need to save old Styrofoam cups or milk cartons for planting tubs until you can transplant. I have also seen people make small makeshift plastic greenhouses with poly sheets and baseboard heaters to keep the plants from freezing at nighttime. What ever it takes to make it work is okay. There are many helpful books available at Chapters™ or your local bookstore that can provide helpful tips and ideas until you have developed your own techniques and style of growing.
Do some more homework. Start reading and asking as many questions as you can think of to as many experts in the field as you can locate. Phone people, make appointments, talk to friends, and network with people in the business, but do your research. In business it is called due diligence and it means do your own research and discover what is really going on, not what the news media or a friend of a friend tells you.
Use the internet. The internet is probably the single greatest educational source this world has ever known. You can literally gain information formerly reserved for graduate university students by the simple click of your mouse. The amount of information on any one subject is simply staggering. By searching the internet, downloading information, or printing select passages, a person can produce enormous amounts of information on very simple topics. How do you grow lavender for oil production? I just thought of that now and I guarantee it is available. And just to prove it I looked it up just moments ago on the internet and got over 85,000 hits. Now there’s a night’s reading for you! Also this information gives you contact with people and associations doing similar work in locations around the world. Now you can seek information or cultural techniques, join associations, travel to conventions and maybe even join a chat group that focuses on this subject.
Look for easy opportunities or solutions that may assist you in getting started without a lot of cost. I have a friend who borrowed a couple of acres of his father’s cow pasture to put up two second hand greenhouses he bought. He convinced his father there was more money to be generated on the land from flowers than from milk. He was right. He now owns a thriving greenhouse business and has all but replaced the dairy farm with bedding plants and hanging baskets. Maybe you have connections with someone who can put you in touch with a person or business that could purchase product from you. At the very least, perhaps they can help you get in touch with the correct name of someone who does purchasing or procurement for that business. At the beginning you may be able to conscript the help from a few family and friends who don’t mind assisting you for free pizza and a few laughs until you get established. Don’t abuse this talent pool, just be thankful that husbands, wives, children and friends helping for one Saturday or a few evenings can make a huge amount of difference in getting started.
Make notes. Constantly write yourself reminder notes of things to do or to look into doing. You will forget and most great ideas come while we are actually working. Later on you can refer back to your notes as a reminder of something you need “to do or remember”. Keep a diary of things you did no matter whether they were successes, failures or flukes. Take good, legible, detailed notes in your diary. It is important to be able to refer back to your notes when memory fails (which will increase as you get older) and be able to have those notes that remind you of how to do something. These notes might be a customer’s order, a mixing recipe, procedures on how to do something, or even a person’s name and phone number, but someday you will be thankful that you held on to those notes and they will come in very handy. Also, referring back to your notes every so often refreshes our memory of how we do some things that we may do infrequently, but that we need to do properly and accurately when the time comes. How many names, PIN numbers, banking codes, etc., are we forced to remember each week? How can we possibly remember everything? For most of us we can’t, and therefore a notebook or notes put into our computer or Blackberries will be a bonus down the road. Some day when you are forced into having to train someone such as a new employee, having notes and files will save you the headaches of having to look up “stuff” all over again.
Finding your way in a new business is sometimes like walking down a dark path at night when you’re camping out in the wilderness, fun but a bit frightening. Having a good plan is like having a good compass. A good plan and a good idea are important, but having the will to accomplish something and being a bit fearless will be a great help as well.
The most important attribute in starting up a new business cannot be taught and maybe not even learned. This virtue is inbred in each of us and is instinctive. What is it? It is having “passion” for what you do. If you don’t have the child-like enthusiasm and excitement of starting something new for yourself then it is hardly worth doing. There will undoubtedly be some tough days ahead, but they will all disappear like yesterday’s rain on the road when the phone begins to ring and the cheques start arriving at your mailbox. Don’t wait to move on your ideas. If growing for a living is your dream then get started!
Let’s review the start up items to think about should you decide to make gardening a business. Here are the lists of things you must start doing:
- Make a decision to do it.
- Decide what you want to produce.
- Start making a business plan.
- Do your homework and research.
- Surf the Internet for ideas and information.
- Find books or publications on the subject.
- Look for opportunities and explore them fully.
- Make notes, lots of them.
- Have passion for whatever you choose to do.
Tim Walker has been a horticulturalist and business consultant for over 25 years and makes his home in the Okanagan Valley region of British Columbia, Canada.