Urban Farmer

So today was the day!  Been planning for weeks now to be there to get some herbs for my garden.  Arranged my schedule to make sure I could get there.

Started at 8:30 AM and was to last till 2:00 PM.  Was held in a church in Webster Groves.

I assumed you could show up, go in, look around, pick out your choices for herbs, pay and leave.

WRONG!

When I got there the line was a city block long, 2 or 3 abreast, of people waiting just to get in the door!

I asked a lady leaving and she said she arrived at 7:30 AM, waited an hour for the doors to open and was just leaving at 9:30.  She said if you wanted specific herbs to be sure to get there early.

I just left.  Had a lawn service appointment at 10:30 and knew I couldn’t wait in line for 1 1/2 hours and make it to the appointment.

Was talking to my lawn customer and he said the same thing happened at another plant sale close to his home.  People lined up for blocks to get to the plants.

So what did I learn??

1)  Want herbs or specialized plants?  Go early and still be prepared to wait.

2)  There must be a HUGE market not being tapped. 

OK, let’s get the greenhouse going and the herbs growing and the marketing in place and let’s fill a need and make some money.

Passion=Income!  (See my BizCard!)

See you in the garden!

Jon

P.S.  Got to find another source for the herbs!

After prepping the herb garden/circle, the next thing to do is to mark out the central walkways. Think I’ll use plastic or fabric and white stone/gravel.

In the center goes the bird bath.

Then, from the design, there are 20 herb plant varieties that go in the four qadrants.  I want to put in plants because I want the garden to look for real early.  Maybe in a future year I’ll do the starting from seed thing, but for right now I just want to get it going.  I also want to get the plants from a source that has quality plants – no offence to discount places or local nurseries who do the herbs on the side.  I also would like to connect to folk who are really “into” the herb thing, to be able to pick their brains and just absorb some of what they know.

So I searched online for “best places in St Louis to get quality herbs” and did I ever find a gold mine!

I found the site for the Webster Groves Herb Society – and – they are having a spring plant sale next weekend!  Hooray!  See you at the sale!  And check out their site!

See you in the garden!

Jon

P.S. For those not familiar with St Louis, Webster Groves is a local municipality just a bit south and west of St Louis city.  Lovely place, reminds me of New England.  The sale location will be a 20-30 minute drive for me.