Do You Need a Job That Can Work Around Your Crazy Schedule?

Up until 2015, I had been homeschooling my four children. My youngest was finally old enough to attend to preschool, so I decided to send all my children to school and re-enter the job. My husband and I lived modestly, but money was always tight no matter how much we saved.

I started applying to a ton of different jobs—substituting gigs, office work, etc. “I can start at 8:30 a.m., after I drop my daughter off at preschool,” I’d tell the interviewer. “And I need to be off by 11:30 so I can go pick her up.”

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that no one wanted to hire me with that kind of schedule. Being a mom was still my number one priority, and I didn’t want to have my youngest in daycare all afternoon. I also couldn’t imagine missing afternoon snack time with my older kids or family dinners or those precious weekends. Make Money Gardening.

When I couldn’t find anything that would fit my crazy schedule as a mom of four, I decided I’d just have to start my own business.

But what kind of business can you start with very little time and very little money? I wondered. I was drawn to the garden, but the idea of selling my produce or turning my backyard into a plant nursery wasn’t appealing (or HOA-approved!). It was thanks to a friend that I eventually realized my knowledge of the garden was the best product I had to sell. (You can read more about the path that led me to garden consulting here.) Make Money Gardening.

I soon found that garden consulting was the perfect side hustle for a busy mom like me. Here’s how I built my own garden consulting business working just a couple hours a day.

My Experience Gardening

When I first started, I intended to only do garden consultations. I would visit the client’s home, consider their available outdoor space, and tell them where I thought they should put the garden. I charged $25 and scheduled these hour-long consultations in the mornings between preschool drop offs and pickups.

Part-Time Gardening

It didn’t take long for my business to morph into something more comprehensive. If I told a client I’d do a raised bed and some trellises, they would ask, “Well, which raised bed would you buy? Could you get a raised bed for me?” So I began sourcing garden structures and products for my clients. Thanks to my new wholesale license, I’d procure the bed at a discounted price and grab soil bags at a wholesale price. I charged clients the retail price for both. For every item I sourced for their garden space and delivered to their home, I’d add a little markup.

Some clients would then ask me to walk them through how to install and set up their raised bed, so I started charging for my time to coach them through their DIY installations.

After a couple months, I increased the price for my consultation from $25 to $50. By August of 2016, my company was making about $20K a month. I would gather all the materials during the day while my youngest was in preschool. After I picked her up, we’d deliver the materials to my clients and then go pick up the rest of my kids and drive them to their various after-school activities. I got into a flow that was really working for me.

By the time my daughter went to kindergarten, my business had grown enough for me to work more hours each day and even begin hiring part-time employees and contractors to help me out. If I’d wanted to, though, I could have stayed working part time and kept my business small.

My focus was on finding a way to make money while still doing all the things for my family I’d held dear as a stay-at-home-mom. Now I want you to hear about two Gardenary consultants who built their businesses on the side while working full time.

Sara Rubens Built Her Business as a Side Hustle While Working Full Time in Corporate America

Transition from Corporate to Gardening

Sara Rubens of Seed to Sanctuary had a lengthy career working more than full time as an account manager for a technology business. She took up gardening as a pastime during the epidemic, joined in our Kitchen Garden Academy, and developed her first garden. She began uploading images of her new garden on her own Instagram account, and all of a sudden, people were coming to her and saying, “Oh my God, Sara, I didn’t know you could do that. How did you learn to garden? Will you assist me?” She came to her husband one day and said, “I feel like I could make a business out of this.” He seemed terrified to death, she remembers. “You’re not quitting your corporate job, are you?” “No,” she answered, “I could fit this in part time.” So that is precisely the way she began.Her career took off when she swiftly landed a big landscaping task for a nearby restaurant.

Balancing Two Jobs and Growing a Business

She was still working from home owing to the epidemic, so every evening at 5:00, she’d transition from her corporate job to her gardening one. Sometimes she’d work at lunchtime, and she used the farmers’ market on Saturday mornings to market her business. Sara did around $80,000 in sales her first year—that’s just doing it part time! She was astounded when she looked at the numbers. She hired a local landscaper to be her boots-on-the-ground person and continued to build her business on the side.

Full-Time Transition and Business Success

Sara didn’t switch to working for her business full time until she was unceremoniously laid off from her corporate job two days before Christmas that next year. She was 63 at the time—so close to retirement!—and had no desire to brush off her resume and go look for another job. Fortunately, her gardening business was doing well enough that she could still earn a great income for her family. “You can do as much or as little as you want,” she says. “This is so easy, and it’s just joyful.”

Nicole Jagielski Runs Her Gardening Business While Working Full-Time as a Lawyer

Nicole Jagielski of Patio Produce is a full-time lawyer. Having spent her youth gardening with her mother and grandparents, she strengthened her interest during the epidemic. Discontented with her former employment and ready to commit more time to her passion, she discovered Gardenary. With a week off before beginning at a new law company, she took the opportunity to create her own gardening business.

She’s kept that pace up for over a year and says it feels pretty sustainable to her. She expects to make about $10,000 every few months, which is more than she ever hoped to make on the side.

Some day, she’d like to transition to garden consulting full time, but for now, her garden work is “the most fulfilling and rewarding part of my day.”

What to Sell If Gardening Is Your Part-Time Gig

Now that you have a better idea how others have fit their businesses into their busy lives, let’s look in more depth at some of the things you can sell working as a garden consultant on the side.

Garden Coaching Sessions

A coaching session is the simplest thing you can offer in your spare time. Your client would be someone who already has a garden set up and planted. They hire you to come in and teach them the gardening system that works for you. This is a great side hustle for teachers who love to garden because you’re already great at distilling information into easy-to-digest lessons for your students.

Garden coaching is a needed service because so many people set up their garden the wrong way, only to quickly find themselves disappointed with the results. I’m sure you know at least one person who’s started a garden that failed, right? You can provide coaching sessions at private residences, community areas (hospitals, parks, etc.), and businesses.

This type of one-on-one service is the easiest thing to sell. You can complete it in just two hours (that’s one hour for the coaching session and 30 minutes on each end for drive time). Coaching sessions can also be super fun. You can charge anywhere from $50 to $150 an hour for your time.

Creating the First DIY Garden Kit

I created my first DIY garden kit for a client who wanted a little garden as a Christmas present for her kindergartner. We did the consultation while the little girl was in school, I designed a simple garden for her—just a 4ft x 4ft raised bed with a little trellis in the middle—and then I ordered all of the garden elements.

Client’s Preferences and Fee Structure

The client was a busy mom like myself who didn’t want to spend a lot of time figuring out which raised bed would be best and ordering soil. She wanted me to pick out every single element of the garden, right down to the plants, and get them to her doorstep before Christmas. (The family set up the garden together on Christmas morning.) To compensate for my time, I sent her a fee for the consultation. I also bought the plants, soil, and raised bed and brought them to her house. I gave each thing I chose and supplied a margin. So basically, I made a little bit of money on the raised bed, the soil, and the plants. I could have also charged her a design fee if I’d wanted.

Garden Consultations with Deliverables

You can do what I did and visit clients’ homes for hour-long consultations. Your only expense for a consultation is the gas to drive yourself to their location, so consultations have a great profit margin.

You can even earn a little more by promising your client a deliverable after their consultation. That deliverable could be a garden design, a planting plan, a step-by-step guide, or a breakdown of the different growing seasons in your area.

We have some Gardenary consultants who charge upwards of $1,000 for a garden consultation with a design included. If you choose to add a deliverable, you can obviously add on a larger fee to the service. You’re now giving them one-on-one time, plus something valuable.

The first design deliverables I ever sent to clients were drawn with my daughter’s colored pencils. I basically made thousands of dollars using Crayola products, so this doesn’t have to be anything super sophisticated. You can give your clients wonderful deliverables without spending a fortune to make them look fancy. Here’s an example of a planting plan.

Gardening Workshops

Workshops are basically coaching sessions for a group of people. You pick a location, decide what you’re going to teach, and then gather supplies. I started off doing salad and herb garden workshops. I’d purchase miniature pots in bulk, with flats upon flats of herbs or lettuce plants, and then I’d split enough dirt to fill each planter into baggies. I’d lead my workshop participants through the processes to fill and plant up their tiny gardens, and then I’d show them how to manage and harvest their new plants. At the end, I’d spend some time answering their questions.

Workshops are excellent offerings when you’re getting started. People love going to fun classes with their friends and learning something new. Your only expenses are the supplies for each attendee to create their own little garden. Other than that, you’re simply preparing, teaching, sharing the joy of gardening with others, and building relationships as you go.

Do You Have a Couple Hours a Week to Start Building Your Gardening Business?

You can build a great future with only a few hours a week for your company. I like garden consulting because you can establish your own hours, deal with clients, and make as much or as little as you want.

You don’t have to sacrifice time with your children or quit you day job to get started. You can build your schedule as you go.

My company earned over $120,000 in its first year, and I kept a lot of it. I earned a solid income working part-time and taking almost the full month of July off to be with my family..

So that’s how I made my career goals come true. I got to be an active mom to my four kids and work around their schedules. I got to spend time with my preschooler in the afternoons.

Interested in starting a side business as a gardener? Explore our Gardener Consultant Certification program. I actually teach gardeners how to start their own garden consulting businesses like mine and like Sara’s and Nicole’s. I’ve taught consultants who had young children at home who needed most of their time. I’ve taught consultants who were still working full-time jobs. You could be next, no matter how much time you have each week.

Thank you for being here and making the garden a part of your busy life!