Many years ago I grew and sold plants, both at a small farmer's market and at our cities large flea market. I only made good money in May. If the weather was nice I could stretch that two weeks in either direction but once it gets hot people around here slow down on the plant buying. I sold just as many normal everyday plants as I sold hard-to-find rare plants - each to a different sort of gardener. I would sometimes offer produce at the same time as the plants but I did not move a lot of produce no matter what I priced it.

Now, my employment situation has changed and I need to come up with some sort of gardening based business. When I talk to any of the managers at the numerous small farmer's markets they are thrilled about adding a plant vendor to their market but they aren't interested in another backyard gardener selling vegetables during the summer after June starts.

The biggest obstacle I had was keeping the plants in good shape for market day. No matter how careful I was packing them for transport, someone always got damaged on the drive to market. And keeping them watered while at the market was tricky because a lot of buyers didn't want a dripping pot to carry around, nor would they buy a collapsed plant if it dried out. Any plants not sold were usually not pretty enough to drag back to the market the following week, it would take a couple of weeks for them to improve.

In my state there are laws about selling plants that you grow - some are in the growers favor such as no need for a tax number since you don't collect sales tax. Other rules make it hard to do if you are small scale - like fire ant protocols if you live in the fire ant zone (I do). You have to register as a nursery and deal with yearly inspections and follow certain rules concerning how long you keep the plants (one season or else they don't consider you the grower), what pots you use (reuse old pots or new pots), and what media you use (fire ants).

I had good luck selling 4" pots of herbs and one gallon pots of Malabar Spinach. The oriental people scooped them up like crazy.

It is somehow crazy. Malabar spinach. People often buy plants they could easily raise themselves. Trianglejohn are you in Australia, because of the ant thing. It is winter here and it is very difficult to sell and you freeze to ice. This is the reason I search for a second product, something to resell. I don't have plastic bags and I hate it that many people ask for them. I would rather have a table in front of the house, but we're residential and stupid zoning laws forbid this. If you sell the plants as garage sale you must ask your insurance weather they cover this (Commonwealth doesn't, Bendigo covers 4 per year).

No, I'm in the US (Raleigh, NC) zone 7b. My city is surrounded by small farms and many of them are plant nurseries. The state made some laws to encourage tobacco farmers to switch to other crops so many of them because plant nurseries the result is that in the spring EVERY business sells bedding plants - the grocery stores, the gas stations, scout groups, church groups, everyone. It can be hard to compete. Most of the large plant nurseries have booths at the farmer's markets too. When I jump back in I don't think I am going to offer plastic bags either.

Then my situation is very different. There are not many nurseries around - but it is still difficult to sell. I had markets were I just brought the fees home. However, I started in autumn and now it is winter. I sell herbs which holds well in pots such as different thymes, sages, valerian etc. I try to diversify and want the really rare stuff. For this reason the webpage. I will backup this with small flyers with the webpage name. So people can call and buy stuff later (which might be annoying too). I will write the upcoming markets too, but this only makes sense when I have the more unusual stuff. I like the webpage because it is for free.

We have a crazy law that states you can't conduct the sale online and deliver the goods at the farmers market. You can promote an item but you can't allow people to buy it outside of the market. Drives me crazy.

It is so easy. Simply leave your contact details or an email. You must know if you want that though, people will call you at any time you don't want. Then there is certainly a liability problem once they enter your property, or you drop the stuff off if it's on the way. If you really want to sell online (which I would not because of the packaging and my fear to send the wrong plants to the wrong person) then I would use another name of a family member or leave the packaging to someone else and you supply the plants only.

I think selling online is a good way to make business, but you must like doing it and have a shed with all the packaging.

The law is crazy and made against small businesses. Maybe it is good to be member of the chamber of commerce, but here this is mostly about those having a shop in main street.

I've always thought of selling fresh cut herbs in baggies, but I haven't done it yet.