Pay Dirt

How To Make $10,000 a Year From Your Backyard Garden

John Tullock

• Publisher: Adams Media
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781440512834
• Topic: Biowissenschaften
• Subtopic: Gartenbau

There's gold to be dug in backyard gardens! But to turn dirt into dough, amateur farmers need some business tips. In the face of rising food prices and food poisoning scares, people want locally grown food, giving small gardeners the chance to turn a profit—a healthy, green (not to mention good-for-you) profit. In this practical, step-by-step guide, you will learn how to:

• Sell overstock to local restaurants
• Participate in farmer's markets
• Grow cut flowers to sell
• Package your produce attractively
• Keep honey bees, chickens, and other alternative produce

Packed full of gardening, marketing, and selling tips and tricks, this book shows you how to develop your own small plots of land (less than an acre) into a money-making resource. A good garden is full of greenbacks!

chapter one

Money Does
Grow on Trees

Could you use an extra $10,000 next year? Do you live in a house with some land around it? If the answer to both questions is “Yes!” you should consider joining the burgeoning “suburban microfarm” movement. Like so much else associated with food, soil, and life, the movement has its roots, if you will pardon the pun, in California. But as a Wall Street Journal article—highlighting a successful suburban farm in Colorado—makes clear, this new type of agriculture is not just for California any more.

Gardeners across the United States are harvesting big bucks from remarkably tiny plots. When I was a suburban farmer in Knoxville, Tennessee (population about 250,000), my partner and I grew nursery stock on a 60-foot by 200-foot lot, and we still had plenty of room for a kitchen garden. In one season, we sold over $14,000 worth of plants.

The Time Is “Ripe”

Turning a green thumb into greenbacks takes ingenuity and planning, but seldom has there been a better time to try your hand at such a project than today. Backyard farming has increased in popularity as suburban dwellers seek both extra cash and personal satisfaction by growing and selling their own produce. Clearly, in this time of economic hardships, rising food prices, and concerns about the environment, the notion of turning their backyard into a microfarm appeals to many people.

Suburban farming is not merely viable, it is sufficiently successful to be a rapidly spreading phenomenon, but as with other businesses, the competition is healthy. The niches available are numerous, and the demand for many products is continuous and unchanging. Even in an economic downturn, everyone has to eat. People often cut corners elsewhere in the household budget rather than sacrifice taste and quality in food. Many also know that local, sustainable production of foods, nursery stock, and cut flowers provides environmental benefits while saving consumers money.

Unfortunately, not everyone who tries this Earth-friendly approach to earning extra income succeeds. Expert gardeners may be lousy business operators, and vice versa. But if you have a penchant for growing things, average to above-average communication skills, and a head for business, and if you follow the advice presented in this book, you will find no problem in earning several thousand dollars in your first year. With your sales will come the satisfaction of earning money from the literal fruits of your labor, not to mention a bigger savings account, a bathroom or kitchen makeover, or just some financial help at the gas pump. That should spur you to even greater victories as a fledgling suburban microfarmer.

Make Money, Save the Planet

Besides being good for your pocketbook, suburban farming is good for your health and for the Earth. No one doubts the health benefits of exercise outdoors. The low-impact workout required for most garden activities is such that anyone in reasonable physical condition should be able to handle it.

Locally grown foods produced via organic or all-natural techniques not only taste better but they also retain more nutritional value, as compared to foods shipped from far away. Other types of products, from nursery stock to cut flowers, are cheaper for consumers when locally produced, because transportation is a negligible portion of their cost. As well, they use less energy, particularly fossil fuels, because of their lower transportation and storage costs.

Furthermore, applying sustainable practices to the cultivation of these products helps reduce the demand for pesticides and chemical fertilizer. All these factors reduce the amount of fuel consumed and greenhouse gases released. Thus, when you join the suburban farmer movement, you’re contributing to both healthy eating and sustainable living throughout your community.

Take the Five Steps to Profits

There are five basic steps to becoming a suburban farmer. Briefly, they are:

1. Find your market.

2. Find your product.

3. Evaluate your assets.

4. Create a business plan.

5. Execute!

Above all, locate your market(s) first. The biggest challenge facing any small business start-up is reaching consumers who are ready to buy. You can spend a fortune and waste huge amounts of time if you’re a voice crying in the wilderness. Start by determining who might want to buy locally grown farm products and how you can bring your business to their attention.

• Do you have a local farmers’ market or cooperative?

• Does it do plenty of business?

• Should you join?

Questions like these should be addressed first, because you must find the market, or more likely a combination of markets, that will give you the sales volume you need to make a profit.

Choosing a product line is step two. To people who are already gardeners, the choice of product may seem obvious. You grow what you love most or are most skillful at growing. Unfortunately, the consumers in your area may not want to buy those things, so you must choose products carefully. Nothing is more disheartening than sitting in your stall at the farmers’ market, an array of botanical rarities in front of you, watching the neighboring vendor sell $1,000 worth of plants one can find at any big box retailer. Choosing your product wisely involves matching your resources with the markets you discovered in step one.

Once you have developed some ideas about where you can find sales and what you might be able to sell, it is time to evaluate the resources you can bring to the table.

Growing space is obviously the most important limitation on your money-making prospects, but your time is essential, too, and many of us just have no time to spare. You must be brutally honest with yourself about the commitment required. And of course there’s the matter of budget. If you are looking for extra income already, it may be difficult to justify expenses for launching your farming venture. If after a straightforward assessment you remain convinced that a microfarm makes sense for your situation, proceed to the next step, creating a business plan.

Writing up a formal plan for a microfarm may seem like a waste of time, but in reality it is vital. Perhaps most importantly, a business plan will help you view the project as a business rather than a hobby. For those of us who already love plants and gardens, it is easy to justify foolish business decisions on the basis of our personal tastes in, and passions for, plants. Having a plan keeps you focused. It also permits you to quickly evaluate how the project is going financially. I have provided some examples that will help you put together a business plan tailored to the unique circumstances of your microfarming venture.

Backyard production space

Finally, as with any worthwhile endeavor, you must execute the plan. Among gardeners stories abound regarding the ease of “planting on paper” while snow swirls around the eaves. That lush paper garden contrasts sharply with the stark realization of the amount of work involved when spring finally arrives. After you locate markets, fairly assess your capabilities and create a sound plan, I encourage you to grab a shovel and start digging in the “pay dirt.”

chapter two

Sell What Sells

In a bygone era, small farmers planted a wide variety of crops, hauled them to town, and sold what they could. Today, agriculture experts exhort the aspiring farmer to identify the market before planting the first seed. This advice applies especially in the case of the suburban microfarmer. You will have little or no ability to compete in crops where sheer volume dictates production. Canneries, for example, require produce in truckloads, and their buyers could not be less interested in your perfect heirloom-variety tomatoes. Nevertheless, markets do exist for virtually anything you might produce, be it vegetables or nursery stock. Finding these markets locally should be your primary task as you develop your new backyard business.

Do You Mean “Market” or “the Market?”

Let’s clarify what is meant by the term “market.” In the narrowest sense, it refers to a specific location where sales occur, as in “farmers’ market.” In a broader sense, however, the “market” consists of all the people who might be customers for your products. “Marketing,” therefore, is the act of offering your goods to potential buyers through all available means, not just across the counter. A more appropriate term for the across-the-counter effort is “selling.” The important message here is that marketing involves a lot more than just trucking your goods to the market. Marketing includes:

• Coming up with business cards

• Running some advertising

• Launching a website

• Printing up some flyers to distribute from your truck

The better you are at marketing, the better you will do at the market. Sheri Palko produces sheep’s milk cheeses on her Locust Grove Farm in the Tennessee Valley. “For the small producer of artisanal products,” she says, “marketing involves taking careful aim at a moving target.”

Markets Galore

Everyone needs to eat, and most vegetables can be raised from seed within three or four months. There are important reasons to consider vegetable production as a potential source of income. For one thing, many possible outlets exist for fresh produce, and several can usually be found in any community.

They include:

• Farmers’ markets

• Flea and event markets

• Grocers

• Restaurants

• Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) arrangements

In addition to exploring these options, you may want to consider direct retail sales from your location, either via walk-in sales or pick-your-own. Mail-order selling offers yet another possibility.

Farmers’ markets

Farmers’ markets provide business locations where customers can purchase food, flowers, nursery stock, and other products directly from you the grower. Many variations on the basic farmers’ market theme exist. You should visit all such venues in your area to fairly assess the available opportunities. In the ideal situation, the farmers’ market permits sales only of products actually grown by the vendor. Most also permit growers to sell “value added” products, such as jams and pickles, provided the key raw materials, such as fruit or cucumbers, came from the vendor’s garden. At the other end of the spectrum are public markets where anyone with something to sell can set up a table. You’ll need to check the rules for any market you might contemplate joining.

Farmers’ markets offer one of the best outlets for the suburban grower.

Farmers’ markets offer one of the best outlets for the suburban grower

In my area, we have public markets operated by different entities. Downtown, in the county seat, lies Market Square, a traditional venue that once dominated commerce for farm products in the entire region. Now refurbished and surrounded by boutique restaurants and trendy shops, the Market Square Farmers’ Market operates under the auspices of a nonprofit association made up of merchants and property owners in the Market Square area. The market, which is open two days a week, adheres to a producer-only policy, meaning only vendor-made products can be sold. Sales of craft items are permitted, along with fresh produce and related items such as honey, cut flowers, and nursery stock. A similar market is operated by the county department of parks, but it permits only farm produce and food products, not arts and crafts items. A third market is operated by an organization known as the Farmers Association for Retail Marketing (FARM). Also a producer-only market that allows no crafts, it is supported by the member farmers, and only they may sell at the twice-weekly markets.

One can argue the advisability of joining a market that permits craft items. On the one hand, crafts may bring in a larger crowd, but this also means more vendors compete for your customers’ attention. The FARM-sponsored markets offer an interesting twist: in order to join the association you must pay a nominal fee to have your farm inspected, to assure that only products actually made by the vendors are on sale. Each of these market organizations receives some assistance from local sponsors and/or the state department of agriculture. The FARM program, for example, receives assistance, though no money, from the state. Tennessee has long leaned heavily on agriculture for much of its income, but in times past the bulk of the assistance went to producers of major crops, such as soybeans and tobacco. In recent years statewide efforts to encourage local food production, such as FARM, have begun to pay off not only for farmers but for consumers as well. Local restaurants have begun advertising their use of fresh, local ingredients, a sure sign that the public has grown aware of the benefits of eating close to home.

Go Local!

The trend toward local consumption bodes well for the wouldbe microfarmer, and Tennessee is not the only state to provide government support. A quick check of two states chosen at random, Oklahoma and Virginia, turned up websites touting “Eat Local” programs sponsored by the agriculture departments in those states. Online directories of farmers’ markets across the country are listed in the Appendix.

Rules and terms for participating in farmers’ markets vary widely. In the case of my local FARM market, the costs include the one-time inspection fee, annual dues, and a percentage of each day’s gross sales. These funds cover the administrative costs of the program, such as advertising in local media.

The FARM markets are well attended. As a frequent customer, I’ve often waited in line for the ...