Save Heirloom Seeds and Make Money

Heirloom seeds are a great addition to your greenhouse gardening business.  Heirloom vegetables and flowers are all the rage nowadays. And why not? They're unusual, often beautiful or at least unique and often have many attributes (good flavor, in the case of vegetables and scent in the case of flowers) that are missing from much of today's commercial produce.

If you're an avid gardener, you're probably already familiar with heirloom plants. Have you ever heard of Brandywine Tomatoes, Sensation Mix Cosmos or Jacob's Cattle Beans? They are among the thousands of heirloom plants that grace farms and gardens all across the United States.

Heirloom seeds
The term heirloom, when connected with flowers and vegetables, indicates several things: that the plant is open-pollinated, that the variety is likely to be at least a few decades old, and that the variety is likely to have some "old-timey" traits associated with it--just like the vegetables and flowers from the good ol' days. Many of these seeds are family varieties that have been handed down from one generation to the next and quite a few were brought over from the "old country" by immigrants. Thus, a fascinating and diverse array of heirloom seeds are available for gardeners to grow and enjoy.

Heirloom seeds for profit
The entrepreneurial aspect of heirloom seeds comes into play here: most large seed companies only produce or sell a small selection of heirloom varieties. The vast majority of heirlooms are maintained and marketed by small growers, most of them hobbyists. Typically, these growers have found a few varieties of plants that they adore and they grow and save seed from them year after year. Then they can sell the seed by marketing it themselves by placing ads in newspapers or gardening publications or through organizations such as Seed Savers Exchange. More experienced growers also have the option of selling some of the seed to small seed companies.

The easiest way to begin saving and selling seeds is to grow a plant that is relatively simple to save seeds from. These tend to be self-pollinated plants like tomatoes, most flowers and beans. Grow these plants until they produce harvestable seed. Take care to arrange your garden so as to reduce cross-pollination between different varieties of the same flower or vegetable.

Storing seeds
Once you have harvested, cleaned and labeled your seeds, make sure to store them properly. Airtight containers in a cool, dry, dark place are a must. Then, if you haven't already, get to work marketing your heirloom seeds. A listing in the Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook is a good start: your name, address and seeds that you have available for sale will be listed in the book, which is mailed to all members of the Seed Savers Exchange as well as other interested parties. These customers will contact you directly when they want to place an order. The price for the seeds in the book is standard: $1.00 a packet for small-seeded plants, $2.00 a packet for large-seeded plants, including shipping. Accordingly, you stand to make about $0.60-$1.00 gross profit for every packet you sell this way.

If you want to branch out, consider placing ads in your local newspaper, placing free ads on community bulletin boards and promoting your seeds on gardening Web sites.

Heirloom seeds are a booming business. With just a little work and a bit of planning, you will be able to cash in on the craze while you enjoy the satisfaction of preserving rare and wonderful heirloom flowers and vegetables.