Gardening is the most popular hobby for retirees with good reason. It encourages people to go outdoors and get some exercise. Some experts even suggest that gardening can lead to a much longer life. And the results of being a gardener are a beautiful garden and flowers to go on the table or give to friends. Gardening can also be a good source of extra cash on a seasonal basis.
Garden Sale. Instead of a garage sale or yard sale to raise some cash by selling off your stuff, hold a “garden sale”. Susie, our passionate gardener friend, did just that. She planted cuttings from unusual plants from her own garden in plastic pots and started seeds in small pots — just like the ones at a local garden center. After the seedlings sprouted and the cuttings rooted, she held a big sale on her driveway one Saturday morning. It was so successful that she did it again a couple of months later and this time she invited several of her gardening friends to sell their extra potted plants.
We also spoke with a man at the local farmer’s market selling Plumeria trees in large pots. (Plumeria, also known as Frangipani, shown at the top of the page, is a small, incredibly fragrant tropical tree that grows in Hawaii and other warm climates. Its flowers are used in leis). It turns out that this man had trimmed his old Plumeria, put the trimmed branches in big plastic pots and 5 months later–when he was certain the plants had taken root–sold them from his front yard based on an ad on Craigs list.
The pots he brought to the market were the last dozen or so he had left. Once they were sold he was done –at least until his Plumeria needs trimming again. And he had earned a couple of thousand dollars.
We have also seen two retired couples who sell succulents and cacti in small, colorful pots in several local open air markets. Succulents and cacti have become incredibly popular with apartment and condo dwellers because they usually do not outgrow their pots and can be neglected for weeks on end. Young Millennials love them, so they could enrich you.
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Note: The people mentioned on this site are real and what they did is true. Their names have been changed to protect their privacy.