Making money from your grape vine includes some less obvious ways than making wine or selling fresh grapes. If you develop a love for grape vines and a passion for learning as much as you can about them, then you are on the road to building up a set of tradable skills.
Take one possibility – pruning grape vines. Each year hundreds of thousands of acres of vineyards have millions of individual vines, each of which requires knowledgeable, accurate and careful pruning. For more information please visit my site
Patio Projects.
The articles in this series have focused on grape vine pruning techniques and there are derivative income streams available. If you can grow great grapes then they become your advertisement for the skills you have developed. You might end up consulting to other growers in the area, offering a specialised grape vine pruning service, or you might gear up to becoming a plant
Grape vine pruning is a dormant season activity that takes place at a different time to harvesting. So seasonal picking can be supplemented with off-season pruning.
If you develop expertise in pruning one plant type then, with a little extra work you can diversify your pruning knowledge and skills across a range of plants. Nowadays the people with the bigger gardens are asset and income rich but time poor so there are opportunities to build up a business as a master in pruning.
The step from pruning to growing is a natural progression as something has to be done with the cuttings. Develop skill in plant propagation and then earn income by selling the plants. If you want to diversify into pruning other plant species you could grow plants from cuttings and then prune them up to become feature plants and artistic specimens. Mastery of pruning could lead you into highly specialised areas such as topiary, espalier and
The step from pruning to composting is also a natural progression. If you are building quite a strong pruning business, especially if your job description includes disposal of the waste, then you can turn cuttings into mulch and or compost, bag it up and sell it.
One of the things about anything to do with gardening is that there are lots of avenues to explore. Any single activity can be developed then deepened or diversified until you become a master in that area. If you become a master at something, have a good disposition and a sound approach to business, then you has the basis for carving out a decent living.
The step from composting to soil improvement is also a fairly small step. If you are growing your own grapes and also do contract pruning and then turn the waste into reusable mulch, compost or worm castings, then you are in a position to develop you knowledge of soil and natural soil improvement and offer your services to the growers.
Without creating a deliberate play on words, any of these activities is organic and therefore subject to growth. Depending on you personal situation and what you want from the business, any of these activities could be grown from a hobby or interest level up to the point where you become a highly specialised service provider. For more information please visit my site
Patio Projects.
