While a new gardening season begins, I want to share how my passion for gardening and help other gardeners succeed pass from a fun hobby to a prosperous business.
By reflecting on my 14 years of growth and sale of heritage vegetables, I cannot help but cringe my teeth to my early growth techniques and to the many errors I made.
There were so many.
Although I don’t consider myself an expert, I have a considerable experience of growing vegetables from seeds. Like all gardeners, I have done a lot of blunders and I continue to learn from them every year.
My trip to success, both in cultivated plants and in business, has been filled with many tests and errors – a testimony of growth and learning that brought me where I am today.
A seed has been planted
My jarning joy was initially simple: I cultivated some basil plants from seeds, but most of the plants in my small garden were bought at the producers’ market. I did not know that my love for gardening, in particular the growth of heritage vegetables, would become a flourishing company.
The trip started in spring 2011 with a single pack of tomato seeds. Since I had managed to cultivate basil from seeds, I was ready to diversify the tomatoes.
Naturally, I planted the whole packet of seeds. Why not?
The result: dozens of tomato seedlings – much more than I could push in my garden. Most gardeners understand how difficult it is to the thin plants, and I am no exception, but what would I do with 45 tomato plants?
Fortunately, friends and colleagues have taken surplus plants for nominal “rehomation costs”. Once everyone was relocated, I realized that the small sum covered the cost of seeds and supplies, but more importantly, my “customers” were really satisfied with their plants. It sparked another idea: I might might cultivate and sell tomato plants.
And so, the following year, I started to grow seriously without a greenhouse, cultivation lights or heat carpets. Although my garage was heated, it remained unused because I thought it was too cold for the plants thriving. What I had was a large window facing south in my house, a spacious table to eat and a desire to succeed.
I was incredibly naive and so inexperienced.
But that didn’t stop me. During the next eight years, I started thousands of tomato sowing in our dining room next to the window facing south. I am surprised to have managed to grow plants in my home during all these years and that I remained married.
The interior farm
Each March to May, the dining room has turned into my “interior farm”. The tarpaulins and newspapers covered the ground and the table, accumulated earth bags and hundreds of paper cups surrounded me.
With hindsight, I cannot believe that I started and transplanted the plants inside – calling it a waste would be an understatement.
Despite these difficult interior growth conditions (and ridiculous), I managed to sell plants every spring to the farmer market. Here, I discovered my passion to discuss gardening. I didn’t only sell plants; I aimed to help people cultivate their best gardens.
In the first stages of my growing effort, the germination of the seeds was slow, and the plants grew up with long legs because I did not know the importance of heat for a successful germination or the 12 to 16 hours required for good growth of seedlings.
After fighting for germination, I became notified and I started using heat carpets. I also bought a portable tent -shaped greenhouse for the courtyard. The two have changed the game for my budding pastime business. To my great joy, the seeds germinated faster and more robust with the heat carpet, and the sowing can go out for additional natural light during the day.
To the delight of my husband, I finally moved the process of “repottage” to the garage, but I continued to start the seeds in the warm house.
Learn and trust the process
In 2017, I became more “educated” while I made a desire for the list of buckets to become a master gardener certified by the program of the University of Idaho Extension. During each class session, I recognized how much I really knew and I was surprised that I managed to develop anything!
My new knowledge and my understanding deepened my passion for the cultivation of heritage vegetables, and I sought to cultivate and sell unique and unusual varieties.
It was indeed a moment of bulb where we installed a LED light bank suspended from the garage ceiling above a rough plywood and saw horses.
After germinating in the house, I moved the sowing to the garage, where they prospered, becoming a stocky and lush under the lights. I was starting to fully understand the meaning of heat and light for the appropriate start of the seeds.
However, the following spring, I always started seeds inside. Even with the right equipment, I could not believe that the seeds germinate in the cooler environment of the garage. I feared losing all my sowing, but I knew that I could not continue to grow in the house; My tiny business grew and required more space than my dining room would allow it.
With a great apprehension, I sown some pepper apartments in the garage. It was a comfortable 60 degrees; The apartments rested on heat carpets under the LED lights. I felt like I had retained my breath for five days in a row when I looked at impatiently and awaited the first green signs of life to emerge from the ground.
And there you go, the pepper seeds have germinated. One of the most difficult vegetables from the seed germinated (and prospered) in the garage, and my fears and doubts about growth there have disappeared.
It was the year we recovered our dining room. There would be no more growth inside the house (never again).
Grow up
With healthy and dynamic plants, the activities of my producer market have increased. I have often sold plants at the start of the market season and I started taking control of my blog plants. It was a booking model, where customers reserve in early spring and picked up factories in May. It helped me plan what and how much to produce.
The reservation system has become popular and I won more customers who liked to reserve plants to guarantee that they would get what they wanted in the spring. With this success, I realized that it was time to go to an electronic commercial platform.
At the end of fall 2019, I thought about my blog in an online store, which allowed me to manage stocks and sales more efficiently.
I was really waiting for the 2020 growth season when I launched my new online store and sold to the producer market.
But we all know what Mars 2020 brought – the world as we knew has changed forever. While everything stopped because of the pandemic, I said that “gardening was not canceled”. I started promoting my online store with a collection in the street of plants in my garden.
It was exactly what people wanted.
Dressed in a mask and gloves, I spent hundreds of tomatoes and heritage vegetables on the gateway to eager gardeners while waiting for the sidewalk, carrying the same. I sold all my stock before the opening of the producer market, the first year in new that I had not sold on the market.
It was the worst time. It was the best time.
In one way or another, I felt the earth during this period of uncertainty. I was doing something good and darling each brief customer interaction.
As their eyes sparkle, I knew that a smile was behind their mask like a box after the Hélooms box went on the fence on new gardens.
From this moment, there was no going back. My online store was easier to manage; I could operate from my garden, eliminating the need to transport factories to the producer market. Although I liked camaraderie and the atmosphere of the producer market, it was time to grow up in a new way.
Growth
Great growth has occurred in the heart of Alene Coop in the past five years. From the end of winter to spring, the garage turns into a large -scale growth operation. We have added a dedicated starting and repotting station, storage for the ground and supplies and several lit shelves which contain up to 120 growing apartments or approximately 4,000 plants.
After years of savings and planning, my dream of a permanent greenhouse on site has become a reality, adding another dimension to my business. He provided me with more learning opportunities (that is to say errors!) And new ways to develop my business.
Where should I grow up from here? Even with the greenhouse, I reached the capacity of my small residential land.
However, my passion for learning, growth in inheritances and varieties of unique vegetables and helping gardeners continue.
Admittedly, it is a lot of work for one person, but it is my love work – the one that makes my heart beat a little faster each time I open a packet of tomato seeds and reflect on possibilities.
I hope you enjoyed my trip and that he inspires you to embark on your gardening adventure!
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Candace Godwin is a certified master gardener, garden consultant and owner of the heart of Alene Coop (Thecoeurdalenenecoop.com) which provides sales of seasonal plantations and items on gardening and breeding of backyard chickens.
I planted the whole pack of tomato seeds – why not? But now, what do we do with all these sowing?
For eight years, my dining room has become an interior farm every March to May. How I stayed married is a truly great man’s testimony.
I was a regular seller at the Kootai County farmers market at the start of the season on Wednesdays and Saturdays for nine years.
The portable pop-up greenhouse has changed the situation for my growing business. During the day, plants were placed outside to receive natural light, which helped them to become strong and dynamic.
When I became master gardener certified in 2017, I suddenly realized how little I knew about gardening!
During Covid-19, I delivered hundreds of plants at the sidewalk so that customers can pick up. Note the mask in my hand and my gloves in my pocket!
Over the past five years, my “growing” garage has gone from a small table weakly lit in a fully functional growth operation with a repotting station and shelves that retain up to 4,000 plants.
My permanent greenhouse became a reality in 2023 after many years of savings and planning.
The greenhouse widened my growth space, but I have already filled it with capacity!
Candace Godwin