Bworley, who maintains the garden? I don't know if you have organic nurseries over there but here I assume that plants from nurseries may have been sprayed. Once they're in my garden they don't get sprayed. Has your landlord actually said he wants to use non-organic plants? Is he talking about ornamentals? I think the important thing is what happens once they are planted. Hopefully you are responsible for the maintenance of the whole garden, not just your veggies, and you can choose not to use chemicals. I am against GMO's too. I thought, like some people have said, the GMO plants are crop plants for large farms not people's gardens. I would hope if they start releasing GMO plants for the home gardener they would be required to label them as such so people can choose whether they want to buy them. Perhaps you could find out what the labelling laws are in your area. Plants that have been sprayed in the nursery will become organic if you treat them as such. Plants that are GMO, well, hopefully between labelling laws and the test mentioned in Scientific American, consumers will be able to send a clear message by not buying them.

You're welcome for the help. :) You're starting on a fun adventure, if you can just not lose faith. Try to look at the "non-successes" as just that, and not failures. Look at them as learning experiences and just keep going, trying again, not giving up. If you start small and don't count your chickens before they hatch (as tempting as that may be...), it'll be LOADS easier to do that. I'd try starting a few cuttings of everything you have, even if you don't have any rooting hormone, soilless mix or a greenhouse, and use it as a learning experience. Rooting things is really easier than one may think. All you really need is a cutting with atleast two nodes (one below the soil level for roots to sprout from and one above for leaves), some type of light soil/media to stick it in and water. Once rooted, it'll need more sun and some food of course, but just to get them rooted you don't need much. Things like rooting hormone, a heated greenhouse, bottom heat, extra-light soilless media to start them in (like peat, vermiculite or perlite), etc., do help speed things up a good bit and increase the percentage of cuttings that actually root (some people get as much as 95% or better using all the above), but you can start some things without all that. You just have to be more patient since it takes longer, and also be okay with maybe having only half of the cuttings actually root. Some plants are harder to root than others, so some you won't get any to root while others you may get 80% rooted. But if you have more time than money, that might be what you have to do to get started. If you don't have a greenhouse, set up a makeshift coldframe on the ground up against your house so you can start now (or as soon as it gets warmer than twenty degrees ~ BRRRRRR!) ~ something as simple as some stakes in the ground to hold some clear plastic up off the cuttings a bit would work (clear or "opaque" builder's or painter's plastic from Home Depot ~ just be sure to check it often for brittleness and replace it once it starts getting that way or it'll fall apart and you'll have thousands of little pieces all over your yard). You'd be getting ambient heat from the ground and your house. Just keep an eye on the temps inside it so you don't cook them (it can get over 100 degrees in there quicker than you think). Once sprouted, you could even put your seedlings in there. If it's hard for you to bend over that far, maybe you could put some old boards across some cinder blocks to raise them a bit. In your zone, it'd probably still stay warm enough inside without having to run a heater. Just remember that the taller it is, the cooler it will be since the heat from the ground and the house will have to heat a larger area. "I also do have cranberry hibiscus that produce seed, are easy to grow, and are edible. Another good choice maybe. I really like the pepper plant idea too, but do they have a long life span?" Hibiscus are always popular, so I'd say yes, they'd be good. Pretty and/or edible is usually always good. Peppers are tender perennials (will live as long as they aren't subjected to a killing freeze). Most people grow them as annuals in the veggie garden, letting them die when frost hits, but some ornamental peppers are kept in pots for years like houseplants. "Please tell me more about being a seed starter? Would I basically sell seedlings?" If you want to. It's up to you. You can sell them as three inch tall plants in 2" pots or six-packs, or you could grow them to fully mature plants. It all just depends on how long you want to keep them. I'd start out selling as soon as I had plants that I could honestly and sincerely say, "I'd pay two bucks for that." Or whatever price you plan to put on it. Be critical. Go check out what the competition's selling and make sure yours look as good or better (preferably better) for the price. For the cuttings, I'd atleast grow them until they have rooted well enough to have put on a lot of new foliage. I wouldn't ever try to sell a cutting that doesn't have but a few new leaves ~ that's too soon to be relatively sure it won't die soon after transplant. Your buyers are only buying from you because either they don't know how to propagate the plant themselves or, most likely, they don't want to have to baby the plants themselves. They want to be able to take it home, plop it into the ground or a pot outside and have it grow. So make sure yours are big enough to handle that. The ones that don't sell, I'd pot up in larger pots as they grow and put a higher price on them. At the end of this year, you'll likely have a few plants like that. That'd be nice since you can offer a wider selection to your customers. Over time you'll find out what plants sell better in larger sizes, and can plan accordingly for the next year ~ start them earlier to have them that size at the beginning of the year. Start collecting larger pots now so you'll be ready for that. You can ask at nurseries (keep in mind some, like WalMart, have to give them back to the grower, or atleast hold on to them until they can be counted/verified by the grower), landscapers and landscaped places like golf courses. Maybe even your local freecycle. Ask gardening clubs, too. To avoid bringing home pests and diseases, keep the pots separate from your growing area and dunk them in some clorox water before you use them (I use a big trashcan and put the entire stack of pots in it, letting them sit and soak for a while to make sure the clorox gets in between each pot). Other things you can collect now are any type of irrigation supplies. Hoses, hoses, hoses. Sprinklers are good as well. It's nice to have those professional misting/watering systems, but if you don't have the money, a regular yard sprinkler set up on a couple of cinder blocks set in the middle of your grow area will do the job okay for now. If you notice the plants getting beat up too much or getting funguses, you may have to resort to hand watering, but even that's not too bad ~ I use the time to plan out what I'll do the next day. Hit construction sites and ask them for any castoff lumber to build propagation beds with. Nail them into bottomless "boxes" on the ground (like raised beds), fill with compost and/or potting soil, and stick some cuttings in those for rooting (once rooted, just transplant them out into bigger pots) ~ in winter, just put some stakes at the corners or pipe hoops across them, cover with plastic, and keep going. If you get lucky and find lots of lumber and some old windows, you can even get fancy and build some cold frames like this one, or use plastic or plastic corrugated roofing sheets to make them like this one, or these. Start collecting mother plants as well ~ any plant you find easy to propagate. Build a nice flowerbed and fill it with plants to grow to take cuttings from later ~ two of each in case you lose one. If you start from cuttings now, you'll have a nice cutting source in a few years. If you can't put them in the ground, keep them in pots ~ plastic food grade barrels cut in half and holes drilled in the bottom work well, last forever and are cheap ($10 or $15 apiece ~ keep watching the classifieds in your local paper, and Craigslist). Like I keep saying, just start small and be patient. Don't give up, and five years down the road you may be sitting in your backyard looking at half a dozen propagation beds, a dozen cold frames, a couple thousand pots lined up in rows and a little greenhouse ~ all filled with growing plants. Nice thought, isn't it? :)

Gee folks, I must have missed something. Todd-this is year 1 of my small business run from my home. When I read your post it sounded like you wanted to design, grow, and maintain others gardens. That by itself might be difficult to make money. But right now this organic, sustainable movement is huge. I took an ad out, for grins, in a local newspaper to see if there was any interest in locally grown organic produce that would come out of my garden. I had about 8 customers within 2 days-all more than willing to pay top dollar for this stuff. I couldn't do it for that many people, but I ended up doing it for 5 of them. I run it like a miniature CSA, but with some definite advantages. With that small of an operation you don't feel like a farmer and it's still enjoyable. As good as this is, I believe the real money is in teaching others how to do it for themselves. This is where the money is-at least from my experience. You're going to have to combine a few things to make it worth something. I'm a square foot gardener and I'm able to produce an enormous amount of food in just 148 square feet. With this small of an area I really can't take on any more than 5 customers. But I've been able to build up a small name for myself locally(not bragging), and that's beginning to spread to outlying communities. The need to know how to garden will grow exponentially in the future for a couple of obvious reasons. For most people, it's a lost art-something we haven't had to rely on for a long time. That's all changing. I'm not saying you can make a living by just doing this. My business is very, very part-time and very seasonal. In my first year I think I will make close to $8000, and I'm just beginning. That might not seem like a lot. But keep in mind that it's a seasonal thing, and I work on a cash basis only. Start-up costs are very minimal. If you're interested in ideas, you can visit my at my website: www.thewealthyearth.com. You all know how hobbies usually end up costing you money? Well, I've just figured out a way to make my hobby pay for itself many times over. It's pretty fun. Don't give up, just keep the dream big. Don't limit yourself with doing just one thing...keep thinking....you'll come up with something...

First, I would get away from that term... 'inorganic'. Inorganic has a specific meaning, and it has little to do with organic certification, or horticultural practices. Perhaps a better term is non-organic - used in context (in the US anyway) of organic certification. Next, if you're hoping that a profit-seeking venture will be able to follow practices outlined in the organic certification, and compete with non-organic horticultural methods and products... meh... not easily done. Look at seed catalogues. Same varieties, but produced using different methods. The organically produced seeds cost more. Is it a true economic cost difference, or what the demand for organics will bear? I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me if the methods and practices to receive the certifications require more effort and cost. It's a conundrum. On one hand, the certifications have standards that must be met and 'proven' if inspected. On the other hand, without the certification, who's to say what the unscrupulous will pass off as 'organic'. And then there's the problem with marketing terminology. If I were to sell something at a farmer's market, and while I may have met every criteria for 'organic', without the certification problems could arise if I mention the term 'organic' in a way that would lead someone to believe I was selling it as 'organic produce'. And then there's someone like me who has little concern for the effect of synthetically derived fertilizers on plants or my body (I don't buy them - as I don't wish to support their manufacture - but I have no qualms about using them.) What I do not use are chemical 'cides... pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, etc. However, not all products that are approved for use in the certification program are those I would use in my garden. So, can certified organic products compete with non-organic certified products? I don't know... it's doubtful. Just the economies of scale are a hurdle that in itself would be hard to jump into and compete. Are you going to go national overnight? Look at Bonnie Plants... not an easy task to approach.