These days, many people are trying to eat more healthy foods, including fresh fruit and vegetables right from the garden. And everyone is looking for ways to bring in extra cash. You can take advantage of both these trends by slling a fruit and vegetable stand. You can sell produce from your own garden or orchard, or you can buy produce from other sources and sell it in your stand. This might be a great business idea for kids and teens during the summer months. Locate a source of produce. Most people use a stand to sell fruits and vegetables they grow themselves, offering whatever is in season. Another option is to buy directly from local farmers or orchards.
Roadside Produce Stand
With food prices what they are, it should become increasingly less difficult to convince people that vegetables are the best buy on the market today. The economics of the way most Americans eat will catch up with them sooner or later. That in itself is reason enough to go into the produce business, if you’ve been considering a small, low-overhead enterprise as a means of liberation. There’s more to this occupation than good financial prospects. The basic idea of my produce business is to buy fruit and vegetables at wholesale cost and sell them wherever I can. On weekdays I work door-to-door in neighborhoods where I have established routes. My customers appreciate the delivery of fresh produce at road-stand prices direct to their homes, and I enjoy the benefit of a paced, predictable income. Then there are the weekends. Fairs and festivals, centennials, holiday picnics and gatherings, motocross and road rallies, and sporting events of all kinds abound in the summer. I’ve done a good trade at rock concerts, rodeos, art fairs, and craft shows.
City Produce Stand
You can sell just about any place your imagination and salesmanship can get you into. Careful buying and distribution give me a high level of control over my profits: The amount of money I make depends directly on how much of a truckload I buy and how much effort I put into selling. I’ve found no other work situation in which I felt my income was regulated so fairly. It has to be reliable enough to haul up to two tons of vegetables wherever you want to sell them. My first route — in a suburb of Chicago — consisted of four or five square blocks of residents who relied on supermarkets for fruit and vegetables. They lived too far from the city to benefit from wholesale produce dealers and found farm roadside stands inaccessible or at least inconvenient. All I had to do was offer better-quality truck produce than the chain groceries, at lower prices. I found I could still maintain a wide margin of profit, because my overhead costs were so low. My only competition came from the small backyard gardens some of my customers kept.
START YOUR BUSINESS
If I was going to work so hard to grow it, I wanted it to at least get used! So I started selling my extra produce, and I quickly saw how fun it was to share my homegrown bounties with other people who appreciated what I was growing. However, lately I have been completely overwhelmed with the amount of information on the internet. So rather than dive into every tiny detail of selling your garden produce, today I am going to give a clear outline of the steps you need to take to turn your garden into profit. After years of experience I believe growing your garden for profit boils down to 3 important things:. One of my favorite mottos that I have to remind myself all the time is K. Keep It Simple Stupid. Save that so you can remember those wise words of advice from none other than Dwight K Shrute of The Office. Growing a garden for profit is something that definitely needs to be kept simple. If you pick a few simple and small things to start out with, then you can work to perfect those things and be much more successful. Well let me tell you, that is impossible without a team of employees. This decision should be made before you even put anything in the ground.
Many local shops and markets will sell homemade foods made with local products and ingredients. By working closely with small farmers in the area, they can save money and make sure that they are serving fresh and local food. Grow larger stronger root systems and beautiful plants. For example, those that are compatible and the ones that are not. Decorate your stand with flowers, well labelled products, and garden tools. Author Info Updated: October 24, Check your state cottage food laws to see what the regulations are regarding selling your own jams, jellies, and baked goods.
BUSINESS IDEAS
They will give specific information regarding planting and vegetabless. Either way, your ability to make money will depend upon how well you display and manage your inventory, and how well you understand your clientele. Not Helpful 0 Helpful 0. Keep it organic, as much as possible, because that’s what sells. Sell your produce to a cooperative or grocery store. Go to your local garden store and pick up some packs of vegetable seeds. Edit this Article. By using our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Author Info Updated: October 24, This type of selling can help you save on labour costs as the customer actively harvests their own produce, however, you will want to demonstrate how to pick the vegetables so that the customers do not damage your plants.
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There are multiple different ways that you can make money growing vegetables. For instance, you may have a small plot of land and want to sell produce directly to your customers through roadside stands, farmers markets, and community-supported agriculture.
For the environmentally conscious, there are opportunities to establish a farm-to-table business by selling your products directly to local restaurants, grocery stores, and vegetablws. Regardless of how you decide vegetaboes sell your vegetables you must create a productive vegetable garden.
Steve Masley. The best way to learn is hands-on experience. Steve Masley from Grow it Organically, a gardening business in California, says: «I started working on a garden in the first place I moved into in California, vegetablea it was just a little patch of dirt. Then, we moved into a place where there was a plot that we developed for gardening.
We learned most of our skills just by having this huge garden to take care of. This article was co-authored by Steve Masley. Steve Masley has been designing and maintaining organic vegetable gardens mke the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years. He is a Organic Gardening Consultant and Founder of Grow-It-Organically, a website that teaches clients and students the ins and outs of organic vegetable gardening.
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Article Edit. Learn why people trust wikiHow. Co-authored by Steve Masley Updated: October 28, There are 18 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. Method 1. Plant your vegetables in raised garden beds. If you want to have a higher yield from your garden, you should grow crops in raised garden beds.
Raised gardens can produce up to 4 times as much as a standard sellinv, and are perfect for those looking to make money off of their vegetable garden. This is because the soil is deep, loose, and fertile. Typically raised beds are sold in kits and can be semi-complete ie supply aluminum siding, but you provide the lumberor complete kits which come in cedar, composite wood, recycled plastic.
Instructions on how to construct the bed will be included in the kit. Generally, the deeper the bed the better and fuller the plants will grow. If you plan to put a vegstables garden bed on concrete, you should look to get a deep bed no less than inches. Pay attention to spacing. Avoid planting vegetables in rows or square patterns.
Instead, try staggering your plants by planting them in triangles. That being said, you should not plant them too close together because this could cause the plant to stagnate in growth and not reach its full size and diminish its yield. They will mobey specific information vegetagles planting and spacing. Grow compatible crops. Some plants grow best when planted near other crops. For example, corn, beans, and squash are considered compatible crops because the corn stalks help to support pole beans and the squash can grow underneath the corn which seling shade and prevents the spread of weeds.
Water regularly. Vegetabkes sure that your vegetable plants do not dry. You should try to water deeply and then allow them to partially dry, before watering. The best way to water a vegetable garden is mlney installing a drip irrigation system and setting it on a timer so that plants get water at the same time each day. Weed the garden frequently. Weeds will compete with your vegetable plants for water, sunlight, and space.
If you want to have a productive garden it is sellling good idea to eliminate all weeds as they appear. This will leave more room for your vegetable plants to grow! It is a sellin idea to check in vegetbales your vegetable garden daily and pull out weeds as they appear. Weeds are easiest to pull out when they are still relatively small, making makw important to monitor your garden for mmake on a regular basis.
Method 2. Choose the right farmer’s market. It is a good idea to shop around to multiple different markets the year before you want to begin selling. This way you can find a market that gets a lot of customers and is in need of more vendors. You should also speak with the people running the market in order to find out what the application process is and what you need to do in order to be eligible to sell at the market.
These rules will vary between markets so it is important you talk with people and make connections. For example, some markets cater to busy shoppers who are in a rush and others develop a community vibe with music and games for kids and families. Choose a market that works for you! Sell your veggies at a farmer’s market. Once you have selected a suitable farmer’s market, you will need to plan out your booth in order to ensure that your produce amke.
There are a number of different things that you can do to attract customers to your booth and develop relationships with your customers. You want to sellling the market and find out how much you will need before spending a lot on decorations. Design your stand: Make signs to name and price all of your crops. Drape a colourful table cloth over your table in order to make the display more visually appealing and to hide stored items under the table. Find your niche: Sometimes it helps to specialize in a specific product, for example, varieties of garlic, or package your vegetables in a unique way ie wicker baskets.
Tell them stories about how your products are farmed, and show pictures of the farm in order to connect them to the growing process. Set up a roadside vegetable stand. If your farm is located on a fairly busy road in the country you may want to try selling vegetables at a roadside stand. By selling at a roadside stand you can save on transportation seoling and sell vegetables immediately after being harvested.
Familiarize yourself with any government regulations surrounding the sale of fruits and vegetables vegetsbles a roadside stand. Try these tips for making your roadside vegetable stand profitable: Make sure that your stand is visible to cars as the drive by. Ensure that there is a space for cars to pull over and park at the side of the road Situate your stand near your garden so that customers can actually see the vegetables growing. Decorate your stand with flowers, well labelled products, and garden tools.
You can sell produce t blemishes at a discounted price. At a roadside stand, however, you could have a discount bin. This is a great way to make some money off of vegetables that are more difficult to sell. Have customers pick their own vegetables. Some customers will want the ability to pick their own vegetables. For sdlling, you may need to provide onsite washrooms and hand washing stations for your customers.
Try opening a pick your own pumpkin patch during the fall season to attract families and vrgetables sales. This type of selling can help you save selllng labour costs as the customer actively harvests their own produce, however, you will want to demonstrate how to pick the vegetables so that the customers do not damage your plants. Make sure there is ample parking and signage for your customers.
Engage in community supported agriculture. Community supported agriculture CSA is a term used to describe when a customer purchases a season long subscription to a farm.
Each week they receive freshly harvested vegetables that are delivered to a mak pick up location or they come directly to the farm to pick up their share of the crop. This type of marketing allows a farmer to receive payment upfront and encourages community member to buy local produce. Produce a weekly newsletter to describe the vegetables your customers will receive each week.
You can provide them with information about growing crops, and how to incorporate the fresh crops into their meals. Give mpney recipe cards that will provide them with examples of how to prepare and cook the vegetables each week. Method 3. Sell your produce to a cooperative or grocery store. If you have a large scale production farm you can sell your produce wholesale to a cooperative or grocery store.
This is a great option for farms that are located far from the consumer market. For example, your farm may be located in a very rural area with little tourist or drive by traffic.
Developing a wholesale sales approach with a grocery store or cooperative will allow you to focus vegstables on running the farm and will leave the individual sales to a third party.
This is an excellent option if you are not comfortable communicating and networking with customers. Build a relationship with a local chef. Network with chefs xelling local restaurants xelling see if they are interested in purchasing fresh produce for their business.
Urban Farmer Makes $1000 a Week Growing Vegetables in Rental Home
I am always on the lookout for ways to save and make money. I have read about people getting paid to go shopping, getting paid to sit on Pinterest all day, getting paid to clean their own house …. You can probably get paid to breath if you know where to look! Anyone know where to look???? I grow things. So over the years, I have discovered some pretty great ways to make money doing something I would be doing anyways! You have your own secrets, why not write them down? There are actually a TON of blogs out there that pay you to guest write. Run a search or email your favorite blog about it, it never hurts to ask.
Getting Started in a Home-Based Produce Business
I am not one of those blogs in case you were wondering, sorry. I write all of my own stuff. There are product reviews companies or you can go directly to a company that you love and ask them about it. All you have to do is accept free stuff and then write whether you like it or not. Companies are always developing new varieties and kinds of seeds.
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