Backyard Herb Gathering: A guide to seamless backyard herb gathering

Herbs are tremendously popular these days–from the smallest shop to the largest discount warehouse, you'll find medicinal herbs, culinary herbs, and herbal teas, baths, candles and aromatherapy essences. If you love the romance and mystique of herbs and you like gardening, then an herb farm might be just the business for you. You'll plant and raise your herbs, then sell them to wholesale or retail customers. You can also sell container plants or herbal products like soaps or vinegars. Some herb farmers operate pick-your-own fields where customers can gather their own plants. The advantages to this business are that it's just you and Mother Nature–this is real back-to-basics stuff, good for the body and the soul–and you can start from home, part time if you like. You can start out small, growing your herbs in a large backyard or renting inexpensive land, but keep in mind that your profits will also be small unless you've got two-digit acreage. You'll need a solid working knowledge of growing and nurturing herbs. If you'll be working several acres or more, you'll need to know farming techniques as well–commercial growing is different from coaxing along a few plants in a backyard border. You'll also need a firm grounding in the wholesale herb business–what's popular, who's buying it for what purposes, which herbs are best abandoned to agribusiness and which new herbs are likely to be the 'in' product in the next few years. (Since it can take two years to reap the rewards of your labors, you'll need to forecast at least this far ahead.) In addition to all this, you'll need top-notch sales and marketing skills to get your herbs in the marketplace and keep them there.