Selling chillis and pepper plants

lucylema

aswell as seeds.

I am going to do this at car boots next year and I want to get ready now. How much would you pay for ...

Seeds only
Plants in tin cans
Other seeds
Herbs in pots/buckets/sinks etc

When do I do them and when should I sell them

THanks

Jnelhams

Well depends if seeds are proper packets (30p or so as Lidl sell for not much more) or home saved (probably hard to sell).
Plants well 50p to £1 not £10 like Homebase tried to do and was left with lots of half dead ones!

LashyLashla

I'd pay around 2.50 for an individual chilli plant that was about 2 inches high.

gaz_jones

I'd expect to pay about 2 - 2.50 for a chili plant if it was a fair size.

Pippilongstocking

Agree with above, if the seeds are hybrids not your own saved, put them in a nice packet and charge 50p?
Wee plants between 99p-2.50
Herbs - £0.99 - 1.50
Other plants, rule of thumb I use to use is 9cm 99p-1.25 - 1ltr 150-2.50, 2ltr 2-3quid - 3ltrs 2.50-3.50 ish

Depends on if you are looking to sell lots or looking to get alot of repeat buying - folk that charge less find they have people stopping by just to see - if its just for a one off, tart things up, decent pot, nice handwritten label and put a decent ish price on them. If you arent using any chemicals splatter Organic all over them, sell yourself. Do an m and s - this is not just a potted chilli plant, this is a home reared organic, individually nutured hand picked and tended.

Or do what we do at the nursery, work out how much it costs to pot each thing (isnt as hard as you think) get a unit price cost per pot size - figure in a 'day factor' ie I grew this nurtured this in for x days - or this sat around and I did nothing for it for x days so labour wise I spent xmins on the whole lot ie pot, compost and fertiliser

for 9cm pot about 5p pot,
3p compost,
fert - 2p (if you use any)
potted up 30 cuttings/seedlings that not done much too

- seedling/cutting cost?
seedtray compost etc - 20p? reuse tray! (free)
price of seed/no germinated able to be potted up
or the cost of the initial plant you took the cuttings off /plants you got

Add the two together and work out how much you need add on for labour - and we then doubled it.

eg - 20 seedlings from a 40p packet seeds + 20p compost in tray
- 3p for seed cost,
5p pot,
10p compost/fert -
my time - £6 hour (hort wages) took 10 mins do the lot - each seedling cost me 20p for my time
- space and nuturing - ? 10p per plant per their time with me
= 48p + label 2p - 50p double this - c99- 1.00p per plant

I make my cost of my materials and compost back, use my space in greenhoue effectively and pay myself hort wages when potting up - problem with selling plants is we don't really cost them out and to be honest alot of folk lose money but not charging themselves for compost/electric for greenhouse/petrol to sales etc - whilst it seems like making money from nothing - the costs are a bit hidden.

Although that being said its great fun - so if its for making money cost it out per plant and make something, if its just to pay your compost bills etc and for fun don't listen to a word I say!!

Pippilongstocking

My pal has it sussed, her mum buys the plants, pots them up grows things, lends her the car (with petrol in it), my pal sits at farmers market and works out the profit as bieng the money price on the plant she sells - pockets the lot!!

Thats one very nice mother - and one chancing daughter!!! She is lovely but is a very slight chancer!!

Davesnave

lucylema wrote: »

aswell as seeds.

I am going to do this at car boots next year and I want to get ready now. How much would you pay for ...

Seeds only
Plants in tin cans
Other seeds
Herbs in pots/buckets/sinks etc

When do I do them and when should I sell them

THanks

Seeds 50p
Plants (not in tin cans, which look horrible) 50p - £1
Other seeds 50p
Herbs in small pots 50p - £1

Agree with what Fay says about presentation, but price stuff to sell.
Later in the season, plants will be worth much more, but you have to factor in transport, care and bugs.

What do I know about this? Did it for years, but gave up car boots early on, as I couldn't stand the twonkers who wanted everything for nothing. We are in a recession now, so there will be twice as many next year!

IMO a quick killing in the early part of the year April - June is far better than dragging it out. By July, most people are set up.

lucylema

thanks for the replies. Dave, where else could i sell my goodies other than the car boot - don't have kids so school fetes are out. Thought about farmers markets but not a farmer - have an allottment though.

Mojisola

lucylema wrote: »

Plants in tin cans

Join your local freecycle group and ask for plant pots - most people have loads of them in the garden shed. Your plants will look much better.

Davesnave

lucylema wrote: »

thanks for the replies. Dave, where else could i sell my goodies other than the car boot - don't have kids so school fetes are out. Thought about farmers markets but not a farmer - have an allottment though.

Mmm, it can be hard to find the outlets. We started at car boots, then joined others via WI Markets (not W.I. proper) with a Farmers' Market stall, before going professional with our own stall at the same market a couple of times a week.Through networking, we gradually picked up a good number of other venues, like Plant Fairs, NGS Open Gardens and village days, fetes etc. It all depends where you are; we are city based, but round about it is very rural.

Car boots do put you in contact with a lot of people, so they are good in that respect. I have not been to a large one for years, but I expect competition is pretty fierce. We did a lot more than edibles & herbs though, so our season was quite long.

Frankly, there isn't much money in plants; there are too many people doing it for love and the Dutch are pretty good at dumping stuff on the British market. Creative accountancy is essential if you go down the full time route, involving HMRC, but then you obtain the benefit of Tax Credits. Otherwise it's the 'alternative economy!'

lucylema

again, thanks dave.

Basically, we picked up loads of herb and chilli seeds for 10p a box (2.99 type things in diy stores. couldn't turn them down at that price. Though it would be a good way of getting pocket money. We will use these anyway and have the allottment so thought why not. Its not something I am looking to do full-time or year on year, just next year.