This spring I purchased a vertical planter to grow strawberries and ordered three different June bearing varieties. Given that the strawberries came in bundles of 25 bare root plants each, there were several of each variety left over. I potted up the extra bare root plants in small square nursery pots and once they produced a few leaves they were posted on Facebook Marketplace for $1 each just to recoup costs and they’ve sold like hotcakes. A gentleman who picked up some plants yesterday said they are hard to find. Has anyone else done this in the past? Thinking about doing it again next year to earn a little extra money to help pay for my gardening hobby.
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I think you’ll find that at $1 each they won’t be much compensation for the time you spend preparing them unless you can sell bulk quantities at once.
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Most bare root crowns average out to around 1$ alone when I’ve bought them. Between pots and soil you say youre recouping costs. Not sure how this is possible unless youre just using old pots/soil you have laying around.
I mean its very generous and boy I wish you were in my neighborhood cuz thats a good deal. But I doubt you will make any money if you try to scale up and have to pay for crowns,pots,soil at scale. Heck single strawberry plants in pots from the big box stores are definitely over $5 ea. Maybe raise your prices for the singles and offer bulk deals for a couple and people will still be very happy.
Personally I plan on selling a few apple trees to pay for my hobby. But I will still charge a fair bit. Trees at Home Depot are 70$ in at most 7 gal containers but I think more like 3-5gal. I wont be charging less than 40$ ea hopefully. So obviously I am looking to make some money. But every year I give a couple dozen or so my extra vegetable starts since I like to share and in my opinion its not always worth dealing with marketplace/craigslist buyers for 1-2$. A lot of them are great and appreciative but its the handful that arent that spoil it. Maybe youre just a better person or more patient than I am!
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I agree, your pricing is a little low. I find that if I’m selling out immediately, it’s a sign I priced too low. Made sure you’re valuing your time appropriately. Also, make sure you look up nursery laws and licensing for your state. I wouldn’t worry to much about selling your extras, but you’re going to want to know what the law is BEFORE you accidentally get too big to make adjustments easily.
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Eh, I had to do it anyway for my vertical planter and took maybe a minute tops to pot each bare root.
I have been watching for sales and reduced shipping offers and have managed to pick up bundles of 25 bare root plants for around $15 shipped. I did have extra soil from the vertical planter and nursery pots from the past three years, so no additional cost there.
I’ll never pay full retail for plants again. It’s ridiculous now. For example, they’re trying to sell decades old varieties of 2nd year blackberry and raspberry plants for $30 in my area when you can pick up a bare root for under $10 and have a larger plant when properly cared for, and in some cases fruit, before the end of the season.
Yeah, just trying to recoup costs, not necessarily turn it into a business. I have only been selling to locals in limited quantities with patent expired varieties. If I want to keep doing this on the regular I’ll look into the laws. I would love to own a berry farm someday but understand that would take a lot of effort and money.
We were at a local pop up green house plant location and they wanted $5 for a single potted strawberry plant… prices are ridiculous on most everything anymore.
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I was at the Home Depot today. Strawberries had no name beyond “strawberry” let alone June-bearing vs. everbearing.
The standard is very low.
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Yikes.
It’s about the adventure. 
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I make a fair amount of money every spring by potting up whatever is around. I pot up strawberries, bee balm, runaway hostas and iris, etc. It’s a challenge dealing with the people on FB though. People don’t show up, change dates over and over, load their car and then start haggling on price, etc. I had a woman order 100 bamboo poles (I sell those too) cut to 8’ and after I cut them she ghosted me. It can be very frustrating.
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That’s unfortunate. I have had some issues too but most of the time I’m giving away unwanted items in good or better condition, selling them at lower than retail price and mostly avoid the haggling and no-shows.
Bought some bare root everbearing varieties since and the yield on plants unfortunately hasn’t been that great except for Tribute where only 3/25 have no new growth. Keeping up on the watering and not letting them dry out. The bottom of the crowns are at soil level. May have waited too long to order them and they dried out too much before I received them.
I’m impressed. I have bought bare-root strawberries many times and I’m lucky if half of them survive.
I’ve gotten them from big box stores (in those baggies) as well as from reputable nurseries and I rarely feel like I’m getting my money’s worth as lose so many.
so @RobertH , you’re not the only one.
Only strawberries I am successful with are Yellow Wonder which I grow from seed.
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