Group Thread: Outdoors 2009

[swordfish]

Love those banana plants. Those prices seem very reasonable and everything looks very healthy. Did you create all those veggie clones or seedlings yourself or did they come from a nurserie and you are reselling them? I have similar aspirations with alot of vegetables I will be growing this summer. Local farmers markets could use a little competition in my glitzy neighborhood. Im not opposed in this economy to sell organic produce out of the bed of my pickup later this summer especially if my normal work doesnt pick up.

I heard about these ladys in Seatle that started a very successful business constructing vegetable gardens in peoples yards in place of their worthless lawns that dont provide any type of food and require lots of water. It seems to have caught on for her and she is swamped with requests for urbanites wanting to grow their own vegetable garden but need their hands held and the raised beds built. This concept could work in any American city and differs from landscaping and the blow and go guys that pass themselves off as gardners out here on the west coast. Hispanics with leaf blowers may sound racist to some but that is gardening defined in LA. So therefore there is a wide open market for specialists to fabricate vegetable gardens for people seaking sustainability and tired of paying high prices for store bought vegetables. This is a business I may pursue because there is a huge amount of city dwellers with yards going to waste that could easily produce an abundant amount of veggies and help these people with their pocketbooks at the same time.

[surfbum]

Originally Posted by swordfish

Love those banana plants. Those prices seem very reasonable and everything looks very healthy. Did you create all those veggie clones or seedlings yourself or did they come from a nurserie and you are reselling them? I have similar aspirations with alot of vegetables I will be growing this summer. Local farmers markets could use a little competition in my glitzy neighborhood.

all the veggies came from seeds. most of the herbs came from clones off of mothers i bought from nurseries and some i started from seed.

i get all my seeds from rareseeds.com ....they are really reliable, have a great selection, and make their claim that they are completely organic and chem free....and everything they sell is heirloom...i use this in my marketing strategies...im not ashamed to say that im trying to get on the "organic" bandwagon before it gets too far down the road...later in the year ill be setup selling actual fruits n veggies...heres a shot of the yard, theres like ten different kinds of heirloom tomatoes, some wild lookin ones...cucumbers, carrots, beets, spinach, lettuce, peppers, eggplants, beans, peas, loofa, radishes....collards, but someone was tellin me theyll taste funny grown in the summer, but the ones i got are supposed to be bred to be grown in the south...i dunno..but yeah..





gotta love florida, i wouldnt be able to be this far along anywhere else this early...ive already got tiny fruits on a couple tomatoes, and the cukes are flowering already...

Im not opposed in this economy to sell organic produce out of the bed of my pickup later this summer especially if my normal work doesnt pick up.

thats what im doing this weekend...ill be setting up on the side of the road out of my car, or a friends truck if i can get him to come sit with me...may have to keep him high and hydrated all day but its all good. I use nothing but FF ocean forest and peace of mind tomato and vegetable fert for all my seedlings. i may not be able to say "organic" cause of the stupid laws but i can say all natural and chemical free... that and i tell people that since the plants are heirlooms, you can collect seeds from the fruits and never have to buy seeds again...since theyre not hybrids youll get the same exact plant year after year...

if i do good enough and sell everything this weekend i should be looking at around $250-$325, depending on how things go...and ive probably got about $100 invested in everything, give or take $10...if i come out alright im gonna turn that around and invest in one of those cloneboxes, a couple dome trays, and a few t8 lights...so that i can start a whole gangload of seeds and clones at one time, or start half a gangload every two weeks so i can be out on the street vending more often. depending on how things go i might try and start taking cuttings off the plants in the yard to sell so i can keep up on the trimming and save time starting seeds and whatnot...

in the yard we use the gardens alive products along with the peace of mind...and we add trace minerals and lime along with a bag or two of soil when we turn them at the beginning of the season or when everything in the beds done and we add new plants....

yeah there are a few people doing that garden building thing here where im at. i actually had one guy contact me when i was advertising for the seedlings saying he might want to work together and have me supplying his seedlings, but i responded and never got anything back...oh well. its a great idea cause there are alot of people who just dont have the time or energy after work to tend to a garden...the guy who contacted me had it setup to where to tell him what you want to grow, what you wanted to spend, and he would work in the size of your family into the garden setup and would come by twice a week to weed, feed, trim, and harvest...the people wouldnt have to do anything except collect the harvest off the back porch when it was ready and set the basket back outside.

if i had the resources and funds to start up i would def look into it...

[fourtwentydoc]

Well i got out of the home confinemnt. somehow they never gave me a court date. so i started germinating some seeds today. im going to put them in dixie cups in the window sill for 2 weeks to start. in the meantime im goin to locate a couple nice plots for this years guerilla grow. once i have my spots ill prep em and the growing season will truly be on for me. very exciting time of year i do say.

[swordfish]

Wish I had a template to follow for sf pricing on constuction and maintenance of building gardens for people requieing long term contracts in the event you will be returning 2-3 times a week for gardening, harvesting etc. In order to guarantee results you would need to evaluate the customers soil conditions and ammend it to your specifications so you could assure the customer the soil is viable enough to produce good harvests. I have spent a fortune on imported soils at some of the places in the city I have lived in my lifetime.

I have a similar bring something to your home now install it for a fixed price and leave type of business. I have done quite well at for the last 13 years. Im in total control of the outcome and there isnt any negotiation regarding the price because it's in a published flyer. This is essential because people love to haggle and you must be very concise in what your offering know less and know more type of thing. You must tell the customer in his individual yard X amount of dollars must be spent in possibly roto tilling in some cases. Some will have hard pack clay, others will have workable soils. There needs to be some flexibility. The devils in the details and you can either make a good living doing this or get chumped by some people who do not wish to spend on the ammendmants you would insist upon before undertaking the job. I would want all products including plants delivered to the job site where like my day job now im in full control of the financial outcome. Anotherwords, I know I am going to get paid and this is what you get for the money.

Once the gardens established or before it is even built you would want to solidify the arrangements for future care with the option to opt out or a 3-4 month summer contract without early termination would be essential to your financial sucess. If the customer wished to terminate your services after the garden has been built and is producing there would arrise some problems that might not be that easily solved. This is why im looking for a business model or template about how an independant contractor would price these things out without taking it in the shorts as it relates to this particular start up business. Anotherwords what are the downsides? What are the traps you could fall into?

After all these things can be predetermined I would love to put a bulk mail piece togeather spelling things out to the individuals wishing to have backyard vegetable gardens at their expense. When something becomes your day job you would want to work out all the kinks you could have with homeowners and look after your own interests as well.

[surfbum]

....i had a whole long post, but i hit the wrong button and lost it....wtf...

it had a couple good ideas for some of the little problems you might encounter like if the customer wanted to opt out, and bed pricing and what not...

i need to smoke...

[swordfish]

The same thing happened to me this morning. I took a good half hour collecting my thoughts which come slowly at times, just to loose it because I had to log in again and forgot to check if I was still logged in. Everything I wrote is a re-write of what I composed earlier. Sometimes I give up and say screw it that post wasnt that important anyway but if you get the chance I like to here some theories on covering your ass in that type of business setting.

[tripps]

Emptied my clone tray, and got most of my outdoor plants in dirt yesterday and today. After this pic was taken, I put 6 more Purple Urkle in 4" pots and added another row to these.

First row-6 Jamaican #1, tall pheno
Second row, 6 Purple Urkle (I have 6 more not shown)
Third row, 5 Cotton Candy in 5 different soils, from my soil test thread.
Fourth row, 6 Jamaican #2, short pheno.



The tops off the first 6 WR x TT that showed sex, stuck straight into a 4" pot with a cup dome. I think they've been in there almost a week, probably take the cups off soon.



Shot of WR x TT #1, my prize plant, next to #2, much more sparse. Don't know if pictures show how leafy and healthy this one is compared to the other 8 females, but it's amazing. Also the first to show sex, haven't really been able to get much confirmation of it, but the small amount of experience I have with the Texada Timewarp strain, fastest to show sex seems to be the fastest flowering.



Just wanted to take a couple pics of #! before I took clones off it today, prob take a couple off #4 and #6, my other good looking ones.





Fired up my new 400w in the veg room, I have much less ventilation than my flower room, luckily I'm 24/7, so I can leave the door to the cool basement open, no heat issues.

[mc1969]

finished taking clones today aprox 45 will take some late in season for my outdoor sea of green first planting is coming real soon always plant aprox 2 weeks after i find my first morels .

[nigel]

One of my sources of income is gardening; nearly 20 years independence.

Big mistake i made was a fixed hourly rate; it does not take into account the skill involved in some jobs or the fact that i can get half a days work done in an hour.

I am lucky to have a fixed client base who make it up to me with food, [nice lunches], bonuses and bartering.

this might be suitable for your raised bed technique

Esther Dean's No Dig Garden, great for turning lawn to garden.

i like your garden Surfbum best wishes nigel

[swordfish]

Good to know nigel. Sometimes females who are offering these services fair better. Probably very important to establish everything up front. I havent worked hourly since 91. Taking on hourly jobs is a loosing proposition. I would get a crew and blast it out for profit with fixed published rates. Thats just me. I wish to treat this as if I were installing a wall or a driveway. Square foot pricing. I have known gardners and they just scrape by sometimes with the cash flow. You would somehow need to distinguish yourself as somehow more deserving than what these current homeowners are paying their Hispanic gardners, which aint much $80 a month. They will undoubtably tell you what wonderfull gardners they already have and how they work on the cheap etc etc. I wouldnt last long with my anger management issues when the homeowner tells me she is going to have Sancho do it for Half of what im charging. It may be more trouble than its worth.