My plan is to
sell potted herbs on a small scale,
medicinal culinary, edible
perennial plants and other useful plants.
I want to sell on markets and do garage sales.
I calculated a bit around and figured out that standard culinary herbs like parsley or chives are not worthwhile for me because of the costs of seeds and
I cannot transport that much because we have a small car.
I want to sell i.e "perennial salad herbs", "Chinese medicinals", "Italian cooking", "Love herbs" etc., simply put, herbs which I group in themes. I try to grow as many rare plants as possible.
At the moment I try to grow as much variety in my garden as possible. I think of propagating most of the herbs by cuttings, division etc., but some I will sow.
At the moment I sow seeds in polysterene boxes I get from the greengrocer. I plan to pot them up.
The problem is that I don't really have a place to put the boxes. At the moment they are on the terrace in full sun. If I place them underneath
trees I am afraid of the slugs.
I wonder if it helps to build something to lift them up. Or even better buying something second hand.
Plant labeling is a pain too. Old
milk boxes cut up do NOT work as I found out last year and ice cream sticks don't work either, they look nice but as soon as people put them in the garden the name is gone. I search since AGES for old blinds, I can't find one. I'll try to cut labels out of soft drink cans. Other ideas?
As for the potting mix, I mix cocepeat ($2 a brick, which gives far less than the stated 9 litres) sand I had some for free but it ran out, aged cow manure and
mushroom compost I buy both in bulk. I have virtually no soil in the garden to spare, but I might buy soil (nothing fancy likeveggie mix) for $39 a ton, but sand is more than $60 a ton I must find a free source. I have got no compost either because everything organic ends up in the hügelbeds. I think that ready made potting mix sells for 60+ a m³. I found that I need plenty of that stuff any ideas for cheap and good mixes without the non existant garden soil?
I picked up an old book "plants for sale" at a thrift store and she says that there is no problem putting the pots on the floor. The only other idea I have so far is putting them on turned over polystere boxes which I would use to transport the plants anyway given the size of the car.
There would be laminated information sheets about every herb. It would be great to have a bit more dimension in the stall, but often you have
concrete floor and cannot drive stakes in to fix something.
I have gathered quite some pots over time at the council clean up, but I am sure once I sell plants they will be gone very quickly. I don't really know if I can sell expensive plants in old milk containers but I am not very keen to buying plastic. Something recyceled but it must look good or a second hand source of pots would be great. Do soil blockers work well?
We're in zone 8 ish.
Do you do markets and do you have pictures of your stalls?
Any comments ideas inpu?
Who else sells plants?
