Garden business advice wanted

 Hi all,

I live in a place where the nearest quarter-decent garden supply store
is miles away, and the locals have to pay bridge tolls to get there
and back. In addition, I live near a mass-transit station that sees
huge traffic in the summer and fall. It finally dawned on me that
there's potential here for a small business catering not only to
locals but to people going home from the beach (did I mention I live
one block from one of the most heavily visited beaches in North
America?)

Anyway, try to put yourselves in the shoes of the locals and the
transients. I realize that the readers here are people who take joy in
starting their own plants weeks or months before they can survive
outside (I have flats and six-packs growing now too!) but if you were
a casual gardener, what might you want?

Here are my thoughts:

...First, tomatoes. Sell a variety. Most locals here have yards, so I
plan on offering sand-and-salt-resistant varieties. A couple of seed
companies offer such. For apartment dwellers, offer cherry tomatoes
that will yield fruit in a container on a balcony or even in a basket
hanging by a window.

...Cucumbers. Bush and vine varieties are called for, given the
reasons for tomatoes listed above.

I plan on selling to transients by setting up a stand near the train
station, and to locals through ads in the neighborhood paper and a web
site.

I know that most small businesses fail in their first year. Thus, I
want to start pretty small and not sink a huge amount of money into
seeds and supplies. I will see how it goes in the first year or two.
If the demand warrants it, I could expand it (as I hope to- my kid
starts college soon!)

Thanks for everything

Chris

NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN AD. THIS IS A REQUEST FOR ADVICE. I HATE ADS ON
USENET.

 "Chris" wrote


Chris, concentrate on the apartment set and container gardens.  Folks with
yards that garden will make the hop on the toll station for larger variety
than what it sounds like your stand will have.

Transport will be an issue.  You are catering to train riders.  They won't
walk off with a plastic flat of seedlings and you'll have to keep weight
(and any bottom drain holes leaking dirt) in mind.  Honestly it doesn't
sound like a good location to sell whole plants but maybe there is something
about the area you know that isn't obvious in your post?  That or you have a
free 'kiosk' opportunity and are looking to fill it?

In that area as you describe it, a cut flower place can do very well.
Doesn't have to be orchids and roses.  Pretty arranged black eyed susans,
Daisies, and other less expensive and easy to grow things work well.  A
small bouquet of pansies nestled in a little babies breath and sold for 3$
or less will catch the guys with their girlfriends.  Mint also makes a nice
greenery to surround flowers with.

Now if you really want to do real plants, rethink the types apartment
dwellers get.  Container gardening is very popular and they take well to
beefeater tomatoes and other versions.  Cucumbers, lettuce (except iceberg),
spinach, squash, eggplant, herbs, strawberries, peppers (bell and hot) are
among the easy winners of the container crowd.

 "Chris" wrote

Just don't name your business "Christian Gardens".

 Brooklyn1 <Gravesend1> wrote:

Since Michiganders passed the medical weed law. Over night it seems that
their is a Hydroponic/Garden supply store on every street corner in the
Great Lake State.
No seeds or plants sold in those stores :)

--
Enjoy Life... Nad R  (Garden in zone 5a Michigan)

 

-------

Newsgroups: rec.gardens
Subject: Re: I would like some feedback..
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:51:22 -0700 (PDT)

Christian  wrote:

That's your first untruth... you *operate* a business.... you don't
own a business until your IRS return doesn't show you're operating at
a loss.


That's your second untruth.


Your parents must have had high hopes for you to succeed in the
arts... you're not going to do well in business unless you change your
name.

-----

What sickness drives you, Shelly?

-
--
- Billy

Dept. of Defense budget: $663.8 billion
Dept. of Health and Human Services budget: $78.4 billion


Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in
the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are
cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is
spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of
its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the
clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 16 April 1953