Make Money Gardening: 9 Simple Ways to Make $1000/month From Your Garden

Gardening is fun, rewarding, and can save money on food. But did you know you can also make money gardening? Your garden can actually be a big source of income! Here are 9 fun ways to make money from your garden.

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Can You Make Money Gardening?

Although there is no getting around the fact that having a vegetable garden involves a lot of time and effort, the rewards of having one will far outweigh everything else. If you want a beautiful garden on a budget make sure you check out that post for some killer tips!

And if we’re talking about making money gardening? A vegetable garden can be financially profitable in many different ways. Some surprising! Let’s dive in and get our hands dirty, shall we?

Related reading: 18 fun summer side hustles to make extra cash! (My favorites are #2 and #10!)

How to Make Money Gardening: 9 Simple Ways

1. Sell Fruits and Vegetables from your Garden

Selling food from your garden is the most obvious way to make money gardening.

Different cities, towns, and counties have different regulations regarding the sale of food products. You will likely have to get a permit or license to sell your produce at a farmer’s market.

You will also have to pay for the space you use at a farmer’s market, so these are all important things to consider when weighing whether or not this is the most lucrative way to make money from your vegetable garden.

Related reading: 6 Best Tips to Become a Self-Employed Gardener This Summer

2. Make Money Gardening by Saving Money on Food

What may arguably be the most overlooked way by which to make money from a vegetable garden lies in the amount of money that anyone can save on their yearly food bill just by growing their own vegetables.

A reasonable-sized vegetable garden has the potential to save the gardener and/or their family as much as several thousands of dollars on their food bill over the course of a year.

Read about the vegetables you should plant to save the most money on food here –>

3. Make the Most of Your Growing Season

If you will be selling vegetables or fruit from your garden, an important consideration is making the most of your growing season. This way you’ll grow the maximum amount of food – makes sense! With more northern zones, this can especially make a difference in the amount of food your garden can produce during the growing season.

To make the most of your growing season, it may be necessary to start seeds inside. That way you will have mature enough seedlings to plant outside when the danger of frost has elapsed.

Related reading: 26 Best Outdoor Jobs That Pay Well While You Soak Up Sunshine.

You will want to do this with vegetables that take a long time to be mature enough for harvest. That would include tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cabbage, and possibly things such as squash, pumpkins, and melon.

You will also want to plant multiple plantings of all the cool weather crops. You can do this by staggering plantings. Rather than planting a lot of seeds at one time, plant considerably fewer and spread the planting out over a week or two.

This means that crops that don’t take long to mature (like lettuce, radishes, spinach, and other cool-weather crops) can be harvested multiple times over a single growing season. You can also plant another late summer crop of your cool weather vegetables. Then you can harvest those veg up to the time of your first frost.

Related reading: How to Sell Your Produce: Make Money from Your Garden This Summer

4. Canning and Freezing and Selling Homemade Food

A great way to make money (or save money through your vegetable garden) is to can and freeze as much of your surplus as possible.

It is so important that safe canning practices be followed to the letter because specific canning methods are designed to ensure that the food you preserve is free of bacteria or other contaminants.

By canning and freezing some of your surpluses, you are saving yourself from having to buy those things during the winter months.

You can also make your own homemade pasta sauce and can that. You can make plain tomato sauce that you can use in dishes like chili. Broccoli, peas, corn, carrots, and other vegetables can be frozen. Potatoes, onions, and root vegetables can be stored in a cold storage cellar type of situation.

You can sell the homemade pasta sauce, homemade jam, and other foods from the garden you preserved.

You can even teach canning classes! Food preserving is something more people are interested in since the pandemic. You can even teach your classes online (Udemy is a beginner-friendly site for teaching classes!)

5. Make Money Gardening by Selling DIY Food Gifts from Your Garden

This post has 5 fun ideas of homemade gifts from the garden you can make for people in your life.

There is a really unique wreath idea, lavender scones, herb-infused vinegar, and other fun ideas.

But you can also sell these fun food gifts too! Farmers markets and neighborhood pop-up summer markets would be great places to sell food gifts from the garden. Each district will have its own rules for selling food so just make sure you check yours.

6. Start a Gardening Blog

Another unique idea to make money gardening is to start a gardening blog! This is a niche blog that can have a large and engaged readership.

Write all about your garden, gardening tips, recipes from your garden, and lots more!

You can make money with a gardening blog many ways – ads, affiliate links, products, etc.

Here is my simple tutorial that will teach you how to start a blog. It only takes about 15 minutes to start up!

I also offer coaching to help you start and grow your money-making blog – you can find out more about coaching here. Coaching will get you where you want to be faster, and will eliminate lots of those beginner blogger mistakes!

7. Sell Gardening Decor/Signs

There is a lot of demand for gardening decor, gardening signs, homemade planter stakes, etc.

Sell your handmade gardening decor on your own website or on Etsy.

If you want to brush up on your craft skills, there are lots of really fun online craft classes here in painting, lettering, woodwork, and more. This link will give you a FREE 7-day trial of hundreds of art and craft classes!

8. Make Money Gardening by Selling Microgreens

Leafy greens are one of the easier vegetables to grow. Microgreens don’t take up much space, and they can even be grown indoors year-round.

Winter farmer’s markets and CSAs are great places to sell microgreens.

Depending on where you live, some regions feel starved of fresh greens in the winter. I know our winter produce mainly comes from far away.

Some people would love locally grown fresh microgreens in the winter, and would pay a premium for this. I have seen winter microgreens sold for 4 times the price of summer microgreens.

9. Make Money from Your Garden by Selling Dandelions

That’s right, sell your weeds.

While some people are still spraying their lawns with nasty chemicals to get rid of a yellow flower, other people are making money gardening by selling dandelions.

Dandelion greens are edible, delicious, and increasingly more sought after by chefs and home chefs too!

I have spent good money on dandelion coffee (this one is so good!) and dandelion tea and the simple greens can be sold to CSAs and food coops.

How to Make Money Gardening and Save Money Gardening: Final Thoughts

Be thoughtful about planning your vegetable garden. You can maximize the amount of money you make and save by gardening.

There is no point in wasting precious space in your vegetable garden to grow things like corn, when you can buy locally grown corn at the grocery store or a farmers market, and when you can purchase a dozen ears for $1.

By the same token, it may not make any sense to waste garden space growing potatoes when you can purchase a ten-pound bag of potatoes at the grocery store for under $2 or purchase a big basket of potatoes at a farmers market for $1.

It may only cost you a couple of hundred dollars to buy seeds or plants for your vegetable garden and to purchase compost, mulch, fertilizers, and organic insecticides. That couple of hundred dollars will easily save you anywhere from $2500 to $3000 or more on food.

The amount of money you save on food by gardening will depend on the amount of vegetables you and your family eat, how much you grow, and how much you are able to preserve for use during the winter months.

You can also read Frugal Gardening: The Best Budget Gardening Ideas for Your Outdoor Space.

You can sell your vegetables to make money gardening, but there are also many other ways too! From handmade crafts for the garden, to food gifts and even starting a gardening blog!

Let me know your ideas in the comments – have you ever made money from your garden?

Are you doing any landscaping of your yard this summer? Landscaping can be SO costly but there are lots of ways to save, including some little-known tips! Check out my post on landscaping on a budget for all the ideas!

And here is a helpful post on what perennial vegetables you should plant if you want to save money on your garden.

Pin these ideas on how to make money gardening to save them for later ⬇️

Do you have any other ideas on how you can make money gardening?