Plants to grow to Sell at Coffee Morning?

lou06

Hi there

I am wondering if anyone has any ideas what I can grow now for selling at a coffee morning fundraiser at the end of august?

I am probably too late to start thinking about this, but if there was anything that was fast growing would be great. I have thought about herbs and mixed salad pots.

I have already got some small lavender plants in the greeenhouse which will hopefully be thriving and sturdy by then.

Thank you!

Lou

stilernin

Mixed leaves/salad pots are so 'now'; they will fly off your stall. Cheap and very easy to produce. To give you an idea of where to pitch your price, Aldi or Lidl do a tray of 'living salad' for 99p.

As well as selling to gardeners, non-gardeners will buy these for kitchen windowsills for cut and come again leaves.

Ask everyone to save the plastic mushroom trays and you should have a uniform, professional looking end result. I'd pre-sow the seeds and then !!!!! out into the containers a couple of weeks before the sale. This way you'd be able to put a similar mix and quantity in the final trays.

Good luck.

Edit: Blimmin' heck - I forgot some gardening terms are !!!!!ed out. For !!!! read p-r-i-c-k

lou06

stilernin

Thanks for that, looks like friends and myself will be eating a lot of mushroom lol! My poor husband has been eating a lot of jalapenos for the last month just so I can save the jars up for making jams for the fundraiser!

Thanks again
Lou x

stumpycat

Talking of jalapenos - what about chillies? They might be a bit late for this year, but you can keep them inside as perennials.

lou06

Stumpycat
Thanks for that, I will look into this - anything that is easy to grow!

I have emailed a online-seller for advice and they have come back with the follow - hope this is useful to any others

The Salad Mixes would be great, they take 4 to 8 weeks to get to "presentable" size.
Most of the annual flowers and herbs grow quickly. (Perennials are much slower to grow).
There are quite a few that would just be getting to flowering stage in 6 to 8 weeks.
We have a category called "Easy Annuals" - You could take a look at Cosmos, Lobelia, California Poppies, Calendula, Ipomoeas, nicotiana or Sunflowers (see the Dwarf ones - especially "Big Smile" = very cute!)
There is another plant you might want to consider - the pumpkins and squashes. They grow SO fast!!! and have fabulous leaves - always look great at plant sales.
Each of the seed packs comes with a A5 sheet of information - but it also includes a colour photo that you could laminate to show customers what the final plant / flower would look like.
Hope that this helps, best wishes, Sue

meg72

Strawberrys? My own plants are sending out runners left right and centre at the moment and I am busy pegging them down for sale at our local school fete middle August. Last year sold loads at 50p a plant.

Speaking from experience dont try to do it all yourself, are there local allotments. I have found allotment holders some of the most generous kindest people you could wish to meet. Also try freecycle,
friends and family a lot of garden plants can be split up and potted on in August. Hardy Geraniums comes to mind.

Have you considered also selling seeds. Some of the bigger seed companys, i.e. Thomson and Morgan have some great end of season offers, and even sometimes will donate for a good cause.

I have a spare £5 voucher for Thomson and Morgan if you would like it PM me

Hope you have a great sale best wishes Meg.

babyshoes

I would second curcubits - things like courgettes, squashes, patty pans etc. August is a little late to plant them out, but if they are quite big in the pots (they will be if you plant them now) they may well still produce a crop this year, unless it gets very cold very early.

Chillis grow quite well indoors - ours lived entirely on the kitchen windowsill and gave us a small crop, but died afterwards. A chilli plant with flowers and/or baby chillis would sell very well I should think!