Gardening for profit can unlock a hidden business
Gardening for profit can be a lucrative option if you choose the right thinks to grow, but there is more than one way to look at this and the best solution may be a combination of a few different alternatives. Firstly, your food garden can return a profit by saving you having to spend money. Keeping chickens for eggs is a good example, as it is not hard to become self-sufficient in eggs. If this saves you $3 per week, then it is equivalent to an annual profit of about $150. Totaling up the savings from all your garden foods can actually turn out to be fairly substantial in itself. The next and most obvious gardening for profit option is to grow something you can sell. There are several options for this that we will look at in more detail. And, lastly, you may also want to try something a bit more creative. Perhaps my own experiences can help give your some ideas. In terms of high-value production options, one of the most important of the so-called "Mortgage-payers" around is free-range egg production. This is because of its capacity to generate quick and substantial returns, without the seasonality of other forms of production. Of course, not everyone will want to (or be able to) keep chickens in their backyard, so are their any other options in gardening for profit? Worldwide, the other important "Mortgage Payer" is Silk production. Of course this is not really a "Food from the Garden" topic and not an area in which I have personal experience. However, I have a friend who is involved with home Silk Production, so I will try to get some information for anyone who may be interested. In the meantime, if this is something you are particularly interested in then contact me with this, or any other gardening for profit queries and I will try to help with contacts or other information. Other high-value crops that could be gardening-for-profit alternatives (in no particular order) include:
My experience with these forms of production is farm-based, so I cannot say with confidence how to make them all work in a garden - YET. However, if you keep an eye on my Gardening Research Projects page, then as soon as I know how to do it - you will too. I have also encountered a few other more unusual alternatives over the years, including Garden Snails that were processed and sold to restaurants as L'Escargot! Others, like like this - requiring a certain amount of processing, rather than just grow-and-sell - include Pickled eggs and Chili-wine (a bit of a personal favorite actually). However, the big limitation with all of these gardening for profit options is time. For instance, Truffles may return $3,000/kg, but you could be waiting 3 to 5 years for your first Truffle to appear. If you are like me and need something a little sooner - not a get-rich-quick scheme, but something that can turn a profit within a few months, then you may have to go beyond the garden. For some ideas to help you find what options may exist, you can read more about my own experience. I will be putting up some more information on various garden for profit options shortly, but I hope you at least have some ideas to go on with. In the meantime, why not subscribe to our email newsletter - The Food Gardener - as a means of staying up to date?
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