Growing a Career

[Wax]

So I may have an opportunity to start up a hobby business and hopefully end up turning it into a full time career. I would love to work with plants such as ethnos or herbs but I am having a tough time finding something that has a fighting chance to make money.

I have thought about setting up a live ethnobotanicals shop but judging by what I have heard I would have to go BIG to make any real money from it. I'm not really looking to make a killing, just to make enough to help support my family.

Another thought I had was to make herbal tinctures but it seems you have to get a liquor license and may have to be FDA approved if they are sold for consumption. This seems rather difficult for the amount of money I am able to invest into the business and the scale I want to operate at.

I would really love to hear some ideas of what you guys and gals think would be a hit and not too terribly difficult or expensive for one person to start up and maintain. My spouse would be working a full time job and wouldn't be able to help out too much so I need to be able to operate it pretty much solo.

Or if anyone has suggestions or sources of information that could help me out with the two ideas stated above that would be wonderful!

I would love to work with healing plants and spread their love but I am open to all kinds of suggestions. :d

 

[۩]

Move to a state with medical cannabis and provide patients with medicine legally? Sorry if this is inappropriate it's really the only thing I could think of off the top of my head. Other plants that aren't cash crops only seem to be lucrative in massive farmed amounts. Am I wrong about this? Would love to see others' input.

 

[Doodazzle]

Vegetables.

 

[Ringworm]

been there done that, I still wear the same old tshirt

Anyway, do yourself a favor, keep it a hobby as long as possible. Just setup a webpage and make something interesting.
Growing entheogens is a very rewarding profession, sadly this is the western world, so there has to be more then just "making a living"
For instance I went 2 years with a rotted wisdom tooth before I saved up enough cash to have it cut out.... health insurance was $1800 a month for my family, so it was not an option.

if you do decide to grow plants for a living, feel free to contact me, I did it as my sole method of survival for 7-8 years or so and learned a thing or two.

good luck, and I wish you the best!
Rw

 

[Wax]

Ya house, I've thought about that but that comes with its own hassles as well. I've done a lot of work in that field for others but never grown my own and its getting pretty competitive as well as a bunch of other baggage it carries. Maybe I just worked with the wrong people but it seemed like a lot of drama and was still somewhat "shady" which I'd like to stay away from. I will also be in a pretty conservative county that likes to make things hard for growers. I will grow my own and it will always be in the back of my mind but I'm not too sure thats the direction I want to go right now.

I'm also going to be growing lots of veggies and farmers markets and such are always an option but I'm not sure if it will be enough. But it is a good suggestion that I hadn't considered, I may have to look into it a little more.

Definitely appreciate the suggestions!

 

[Wax]

Ringworm, the great thing about this potential opportunity is that I will be able to latch on to my better half's health benefits and we should have enough just on her income that I can afford to take a little risk in the venture.

I would however like to make enough profit that I can sustain the business and maybe make a few hundred bucks a month extra.

I would love to grow entheogens, I feel really called to do so. I would mostly want to sell live plants and cuttings as to stay well within the legal areas so it may be somewhat limiting. Also I will be in the 1A hardiness zone although I do plan on having a green house which could be heated.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

 

[Ringworm]

wow... that's dang cold!
I was in zone 8b, 8-9 months a year the stuff could all live outdoors.

If I was you in that situation I'd go find a local greenhouse grower and ask them a handful of questions. Some basic operating costs would help. When I was in business it was pretty common to have a cost per sq ft breakdown for a greenhouse. It isn't hard to figure out what the gross could be per sq ft and go from there to find it feasible.

Or if you have a spare room in the house, a growlight is nice and you can start small with little initial cost. We used to heat our house strictly with growlights over the winter

Basic simple entheo plants that could be grown easily in this setup:
Calea zacatechchichi
Heimia salicifolia
Psychotria (see my propagation post)
Salvia d (I'd use the luna clone, they are stupid simple).

I don't know what the market can bear, but I know I used to ship thousands of Salvia's to the great white north every year, so they were obviously selling.

 

[Umantis]

there is a saying in information technology “You can have good, fast, or cheap. but you can only pick two”.

i suppose the analogy for entheogens could be "You can have good, cheap or legal"

Paul Stamets in particular has done wonders for the quality, availability and affordability of edible and medicinal mushrooms - and even he probably started out thinking he was going to try to be PF Tek. he had the calling and it led him to a completely legitimate enterprise.

Good luck to you, hope to see your awesome online storefront in the near future

 

[Wax]

Haha ya, its not as cold as it implies in all the books but it can get down there. The average winter temps are 40-20f. and it freezes an average of about 150 days a year. I'm sure going indoors for the winter would be possible depending on the size of the setup. I love the imagery of heating with grow lights makes me smile

I have only been able to find the Blosser strain for sale (currently out of stock) and unfortunately the vendor is not replying to my emails regarding when they will be available. It would be awesome if you could PM me a source for the Luna seeing as this is not the right sf for discussing suppliers. If not I'll do a little more rigorous searching.

Thanks for the tips, I will keep those in mind!

Umantis, you have a good point about Stamets. He has done amazing work and has done something to be proud of for sure, making these powerful medicines and gourmet foods available and so easy for the average joe to grow right in their kitchen is such a step forward in the mushroom community. Thanks for the words of wisdom and I hope to provide you all beautiful plants in the near future as well!

[Edit] By the way Ringworm, I'm in 1A not A1 if thats what you where thinking. Definitely not as cold as Alaska!

 

[Ringworm]

ohh yeah, that isn't bad at all.
Still a good sized greenhouse costs a ton! (both to buy/build and operate). I started out indoors and it is fairly cheap to do so.
Of course I was *coughcough* growing some annuals that are generally frowned upon, but it's the same idea in theory. $1000 gets you two nice lights, a humidifier and some good waterproof protection for the floors and walls.

I'll have to ask some of my old customers if they could spare you a Luna clone, I sold so many of them but really have no idea where they all went... I had hoped to flood the market with them so they would be as common as anything. I know one fella on the ayahuasca.com forums has one, maybe ask there?

Get yourself a JL Hudson catalog and get a bunch of different interesting seeds and get started, it's a fun project for the kids too.

 

[Wax]

Thanks, ya I've got a little bit of savings I'm willing to put into this project as well as some handyman friends that may be willing to help for little or no charge, or maybe just a couple plants.

I actually got a little too excited and searched around last night and found a decently priced Luna clone and bought it right up

I'm also thinking I could grow lavender and some other herbs outdoors during the summer and supplement with that as well. It's too bad I just got rid of a light last year thinking I wouldn't need it...oh well. I will look into that catalog and try to contact some local green house growers to get some more information on operating costs and whatnot.

Thanks for all the tips, you've given me some good leads and I will surely be following up on them. I'll let you guys know how the Luna clone looks once it gets here. I have a feeling the supplier is a good one, the dimensions they quoted on the site were like 2x3 feet in a 3.5 in. pot but I'm trying not to count my chickens before they hatch that sounds really big for the price I paid.

 

[Ringworm]

you are going to end up with a 3-4inch plant. Many growers list the full sized plant in the description.

The luna has more robust stems, and rounder more heavily serrated leaves. Siebert found it, and it is a much easier grower then the hoffmann/wasson clone.

 

[Wax]

I figured as much, it sounded awful big to be in a pot that small they sure talked themselves up pretty good haha!

Have you had any experience with other varieties such as Paradox or Resilience? I was looking for a really hardy variety but couldn't find much of anything on the difference in growing them mainly just potency discussions.

 

[Ringworm]

well, the old cultivars were really and truly different. I'm sure that since that point certain growers have named every plant that has a weird spot on it.
Blosser, Hoffman/wasson, Luna are truly distinct.

 

[Doodazzle]

DIY bamboo greenhouse:

bamboo greenhouse - Recherche Google