Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine So I'm starting a plant nursery....

I've got farming in my blood, but I never wanted to do things like tobacco and soybeans.

I told my mom for years that she should take all her iris' etc...and propogate them, have a nice little business on the side for herself.

She never did, but I decided to do it myself. I've got a nice japanese red maple that is gonna throw off about a thousand seeds, got more amarylis than I can shake a stick at, and everyone in the family is looking for roadside roses ( what i call flowers growing on the side of the road and not in anyone's yard, lol)

So, it's me and my tiller, some planters, and this fall I am gonna build a greenhouse or two out of pvc and plastic. My wife, being the creative type, is already growing it well beyond our current means, but I figure in about five years to have a nice side business. I would love to start gathering the odd stuff, like avacado seedlings, kiwi seedlings, etc.

And for all those that like green, I am saving all the plastic pepsi bottles etc... for inexpensive planters.

It's gonna take a lot of work, but I am looking forward to it. I have fantasies right now of growing it into a nice 20 acre nursery. Not out of bounds, but it will take a lot more money and time to do it my way, since my way is basically the broke way, lol. But I've always liked working with the soil and growing plants.

Remember those raspberries I mentioned on another thread, six lived out of nine, and of those six, three currently have blooms. I wasn't expecting them until next year.

gonna start looking around for some places with unusual plants, like stuff from the orient and tropics that can take the occasional cold weather that we have here in South Carolina.

I think its gonna be hard work, but a lot of fun too.

I killed some grass this Spring. I've killed all kinds of plants in my lifetime. When I was young I started a vegetable garden. I killed corn plants, tomato plants, and really put harm to the green peppers. The only thing I had trouble killing was some radishes.

Sounds like you rate as a mass murderer, lol. 'course, if you killed some wheat, you'd be a cereal killer.

you had to milk that one, Rick!

but best of luck on the nursery. sounds like a great plan!
and good for you for not growing tobacco.

I'm with BB. I have either killed or mercifully given away every houseplant I have ever owned. I can kill cacti, aloe and ivy. If I took up gardening, it would start a famine!

Rick, all the best in your new venture. I hope things blossom for you.

I'm not that ambitious but I do have a garden going this year. Fresh veggies beat the heck out of that store bought stuff.

Best of all I transplanted a blackberry 4 years ago and it's now big enough to start producing. I absolutely love blackberries and now that I have my own bush growing along the backyard fence I'm giddy with the prospect of making my own ice cream topping.
Yummm..

Well, we have wild blackberries all over the place here, so I don't have to worry about growing them to much. Blueberrys, raspberrys, gonna try a few more types, also I know where a mulberry tree is and am gonna try and get some seeds off it.

YK, a garden is a very usefull thing. We filled three freezers with peas, butterbeans, squash (something i loathe), corn, and had fresh tomatoes, radish, cucumber, zucchini, eggplant and...well, a whole lot more, lol.

Fresh mustard and cornbread with a honkin' big glass of iced tea...man, thats heaven.

Sounds like you've got a solid plan, and hopefully the economy will be up and running again around the time you are.

Best of luck to ya!

Mmmm, wild blackberries ...

Yeah, I'm just loving the garden. I found wild strawberries on my property just two days ago so I'm excited about that too.

My nasturtiums are blooming, though the soil could've used a little more feeding if their size is an indicator. So technically, I'm actually growing something edible in the yard this year! Go me!

(Fun tip: Nasturtium plants double as slug repellent.)

Quite a few plants can be grown that act as repellents to other insects as well. Thats one of the things I am planning on doing, growing one thing to help out other things.

Like I said, this is a start but so far I've got about 350 iris, 320 daffodil, seeds for about 2000 amarylis, six actual amarylis planted, 60 pumpkin hills and clearing several patches for more to try and get in for the season. Not to mention that I'm waiting on my maple seeds to drop. One tree will give me conservatively 400 seedlings.

Working from can see to can't see, like the old timers said.

Gee, I thought you were talking about having a big back yard. How much land will you be growing on?

We live on a dead end street near a bay on Lake Erie. Our driveway is separated from a park on the bay by a dike. There's a little section just the other side of the dike that is overgrown with vines and stink trees and no one except some Iraqi's from Sterling Hts (Mich) ever goes in there. They come once a year to pick grape leaves.

I've been thinking that area would make a great rain garden.

When it rains, all the water from all the drives on the block heads down the street towards a pipe passing through the dike (if the lake rises enough to flood the park, it's our job to close a hatch to keep the lake out).

If I could divert that rain flowing through the pipe a bit, it would flow into that unused area. We already have quite a few varieties of birds, one eagle's nest, bunnies (too many), and ground hogs. I'd imagine they'd snack on the garden so I'm not expecting a windfall or anything. Just something to do.

Just not sure what I could grow there.

My folks own about 25 acres. 12 of it has been taken up in a pond created when dirt was dug to expand a highway.

My folks and I both paid for it, but its in their name. Still, i hope at some point to be using the entire place, as well as buying some land around it if I need to. Not only would I like a nursery, but I would also like to grow vegetables as well as fruit trees. It may never get there, it my die aborning, but I'm gonna give it the best I've got.

I like the unusual stuff, but you also have to grow what you can sell. Most of the stuff I am going to try to do is gonna be from seed and seedling up. Its a true startup in that I don't have any real money, so everything is going to start from what I can scrounge and what i can get off pocket money.

After the crew that dug the pond left, dhec put in several ground water wells about fifteen feet deep. Right now I am going to get a hand pump well cap and use it to fill several tanks that I have. I have to clean them up a lot first, but all that takes is time and elbow grease, my favorite kind of expendature.

I have been on several sites that talk about propogating some species that I like, and I am giving myself a crash course in propogation and mulch piling. I also plan to build several small hot houses, it doesn't take much really. I figure that not including the stuff that I can raise for annuals, I will have things that i can start to sell on a consistent basis in about three years if all goes according to schedule.

BB, there are some soil sample test kits that are relatively inexpensive. You can use them to tell you what your soil is composed of and then go to your state agriculture sight. The can easily tell you what works best for your soil, or what you can add to it to move things along. The place I have has been used for a farm for decades, so the most I have to worry about is pesticides already in the soil. That makes me a bit leery about the vegetables and fruit trees, as they are edible and not ornamental, but I will be checking it out carefully. Hope this helps.

Thanks, that's a great tip. I'm thinking maybe I should do it only to see if it's safe for those people to be using those grape leaves in their cooking. The Bay and the river were mostly industrial at one time: steel, coal, ash. There's got to be PCBs in there that could have leached into the park during floods.

Mostly I wasn't thinking to grow food for human consumption, it isn't my land. Just maybe some flowers or wild berries for the animals. You're right though, I probably should get advice on native species. If I get hungry, there's always the bunnies, evil laugh.

iVillage's GardenWeb community is great for talking to experienced gardeners from your own region. I also use County Extension services sometimes, but it has to be from a neighboring county; our own service fell to the budget buffoons a while back.

I put in a raised bed vegetable garden this year, so I don't have to worry about pesticides. It seems to be working. I've only killed an eggplant and a beet so far. Only half the spinach came up, though. (Well, maybe slightly more than half; I found one growing in the beets today.) And the cucumbers are growing! As far as I know, no one's ever had at decent crop of cucumbers on this land.

Cucumbers and squash are pretty easy to grow where I live, basically just throw the seeds on the ground and come back in about four weeks.

I am also planing on trying to grow crepe myrtle, pecan trees, and a host of others. Right now its just a matter of scrounging up the seedlings, and getting things going.

Good luck on the raised garden, Arachne. I know a gentleman over near pageland, SC that uses drums for a raised garden. I don't have the number he has, I've only got about three, and ones a 200 gallon drum, so I'm limited by that, but have a good understanding of what goes into it.

AAAAGGGGGHHHHHH! I have about two thousand amarylis seed given to me and I cannot get them to propogate. I know they are good because they are off plants that were themselves dropped as seeds and grown. It really aggravating. But, I'm using a few batches at the time to try to find a method that works.

Not to mention that I am having to wait forever for my Japanese maple to drop its seeds, lol. The fun part is the three to four hundred feet of water line I am going to have to dig by hand to run a water line. It has to be deep enough to not be plowed up by the farmer working the field it crosses, and its in the middle of summer. Ever tried to dig any dirt in the summer in full sun in SC? Its like digging in concrete.

Only good thing is, between clearing off places with a slingblade and bushaxe, tilling, and constant work, I'm getting into shape again. Feels good. Tired but good. Still, I want the plants to get ready. I want next year to turn out well.

Take a couple amaryllis seeds and put them in a dimly lit room, with some mood music and a little wine.

If that doesn't work, I recommend plant porno, vids of Bees and hummingbirds as the last resort.

Heheheh...well, I've been thinking about getting some rooting hormones for them, if they ever break out, lol. Oh, the hormones are real.

I know have about 100 pumpkin plants for ornamental purposes. I'm hoping that if each produces just one decent sized pumpkin, that'll generate about $500. I can take that and plow (pun intended) it back into more seed for more cash crops to grow the nursery side.

And I'm currently trying about three different methods for seed germination on the amarylis.

WoooooooHoooooooooo! I tried a float method for germination of seeds for the amarylis and in two days went from one sprout to about 13 as best I could count. (the old eyesight ain't what it used to be for close up work now that I'm past forty, lol.)

If I can get them all to germinate, I should easily be looking at 1500 to 2000 plants next year. Given that kind of production per plant, in five years I could easily be moving close to 10,000 plants a year on a steady basis. Freakin' awesome.

I am now awaiting my japanese maple to drop its seeds with bated breated. I've also heard about something called plant fairs where folks trade seeds of different plants. I'm hoping to find one near me and attend in the near future. Everyone around here plants the same thing year after year. I am hoping there will be a market for different items. I just have to make sure that they are regional compatible and also not devastators, like Kudzu has been.

Hey, BB, don't be givin' away my seductin' teckneeks on tha wife, now. I gotta have a few cards up muh sleeves.

I'll just steal them and call them my own.

DitchWitch. Since my days where I worked on heavy equipment I've decided that a day's rental for the machinery beats the heck out of the hospital bill after I sprain my back. I've seen 'em small enough to hand operate...but that looks like more work than I want to do too.