During the warmer months, many people will grow their own fruits and vegetables in a home garden in order to eat fresh or store for use during the winter. This is a great way to save some money and get some fresh air with a little bit of exercise. But have you ever thought of a home garden as a way to make an extra monthly income? Would it be possible to bring in an extra $1000 per month growing and selling home produce? Let’s run a few numbers and find out.
Growing Tomatoes
I decided to run some numbers with tomatoes and see if it might work. This is because tomatoes are a fairly common garden plant here in the Midwest and is something that I have grown myself. Also, it was pretty easy to come up with the numbers since I regularly buy tomatoes at the grocery store for making tacos.
Our goal is $1000 per month. To achieve this, we have to figure out how much each plant might yield. It seems that a reasonable number is about 50 tomatoes per plant during the growing season. This seems like a good estimate to me from my personal experience. I am estimating that would give about 20 pounds of tomatoes overall which might sell for $1.50 per pound. Thus, one might expect each tomato plant to gross $30 in revenue. In order to make $1000, one might need to plant 33 plants.
Unfortunately, that is only for $1000 during an entire summer. If you wanted to average $1000 per month for an entire year, it would take almost 400 plants! Not my idea of a fun little hobby.
Now I suppose you might be able to find some higher value or specialty type plants that would be in demand which could lead to greater profits. Still even looking at some of these more expensive herbs and spices, it seems like growing fruits and vegetables in a home garden may have more value as a hobby or stress reliever than as a big money making idea.
I suppose gardening should be something that is enjoyable, and if you make a little extra on the side, then great. But for making a grand per month, I wouldn’t recommend it.
I would love to hear from any readers who have sold their produce to get your input!
