How to Make Money with Homegrown Tomatoes

It’s fun to grow tomatoes in your own garden. As tomatoes start to ripen, you may realize you went overboard with the number of plants because you end up with more than you can eat in a year. While you can freeze many of them and give a few to your neighbors or family members, you may want to consider doing something a little different. You can try making some money from theses extra tomatoes with these possible techniques.

Set Up a Stand

People love to buy homegrown tomatoes, so set up a stand in your neighborhood or outside of a local business. You’ll likely sell all the ones you have in one day if you price them competitively. Check out farmers markets to see what they charge, and just reduce your price a little to attract more buyers.

Put Up a Sign

You don’t have to go anywhere when you put up a sign. A simple sign in your yard or at the end of your street telling people you have homegrown tomatoes will bring some interested buyers to you, especially if you live off a busy street.

Post an Ad in the Paper

You can advertise your tomatoes for sale in the local newspaper. Buy a classified’s ad and you should be able to make up the money you spent on it.

Local Restaurants

Local restaurants will sometimes buy from local farmers. These are referred to as “white linen” restaurants. The chef usually makes the decisions in this type of eating establishment, and usually they prefer local produce.

Ask Someone to Sell for You

Farmers markets have tons of people who are selling fresh, local produce. If you don’t want to sell your tomatoes yourself, you can ask one of them to sell them for you. You sell the tomatoes to that person, and then that person sells them to customers. You will usually make less than what the person will sell them for, but at least you didn’t have to do all the work.

Now that you know how to sell your tomatoes, get ready to make some money. If you choose one way and that doesn’t work, try another way. You have to keep your customers in mind. Some customers want to buy them off a stand, while others want them from a local grocery store. Once you find out where your customers go for tomatoes, you can try to get yours in there to make a sale.

The Author:

Noelle Renee Allen