Growing Our Retirement – Funding a Retirement with a Backyard Nursery

Growing our retirement is about starting a plant nursery including many articles about how to start a plant nursery business that increases your retirement investment. There is a great amount of information about how to make money with plants and some other Retirement Side Hustles. Your plant nursery retirement business could supplement your retirement income or perhaps provides all of it. It is also about a lifestyle we enjoy that includes enjoying the outdoors, the plants we love, gardening, and a desire to run a successful business. You are invited to “Plant a Better Retirement” filled with time outside, some beneficial exercise and extra income. We offer many useful tips from years of experience that you can use even if you are not ready to retire. The same principles apply to growing your retirement, whether you are starting:

A backyard tree/plant nursery
A retirement business growing plants
A side hustle plant business
Growing and selling flowers or perennials
A full scale, commercial plant nursery
Growing house plants to sell
Financial retirement tips
Product reviews
Many smaller, home based ventures

How we got started Growing Our Retirement.

We bought a larger piece of property over 20 years ago with the plan of starting a plant nursery. Our hope was to grow plants, trees and nursery stock, we just never got started. We both had responsibilities with jobs, children, general home upkeep/maintenance and we just never got to it. Now that our kids are grown and retirement is just a few years away, it seemed to be the ideal time to start. While we have a larger piece of property with plenty of room to grow many hundreds if not thousands of plants you do not need to have a large piece of land to start a small plant nursery. There are people who start with as little as their back patio up to a smaller backyard. We will try to show you different possibilities so you can grow a business that suits both your lifestyle and property.

The beginnings of Growing Our Retirement

When we first started we were just testing the waters and planted 100 small Norway Spruce tree transplants in #3 grow pots. Having bought some larger trees from another small home nursery, and doing some research it seemed the best way to grow plants would be by not breaking the ground but using small containers. We decided our main activities would be buying plant stock, planting bare root plants , potting up plants, and growing the plants to a size that people would like to purchase.

Our plan was to grow plants to about 3-4 feet tall. This remains our focus even as we expand the scope of growing our retirement nursery. What we hope to show you in our pages and videos is just how you can do the same thing. Lots of people dream of a hobby farm , a secondary income, and or a supplementary retirement income. We like all that and the lifestyle that goes along with it. Having been very busy in life and our jobs we just could not imagine sitting around during retirement and not being productive. We both love the outdoors, plants and having an extra income is great And we hope to make a reasonable size enterprise from our growing activities.

You can follow along as we experiment, learn, try new types of plants, market our plants and the occasional colossal mistakes we have made. If you are interested read more about us and our plans for working in retirement.

What can you learn from Growing Our Retirement?

In growing our retirement, we will take you through what we have learned about how to grow plants. You will learn how to maintain them, plant them, propagate them, and selling them. We will cover selecting containers and what plants to buy. Most importantly how to sell your finished plants. We’re also actively involved in cutting and selling firewood. Much of our property is in a wood lot management program and only part is devoted to the plant nursery. We make a small income from the firewood and this also helps us maintain a real estate farm tax classification.

Depending on your state, if you have a large piece of property, you may be able to have your property classified as a farm. You would generally need five to 6 acres or more acres. In our case, we are in a wood lot management program and can qualify for a lower real estate tax rate. Here is a good place to start to learn about being classified as a farm usda farm. For us, this tax saving is actually sizable and in retirement, saved money is as good as extra income.

Financial Benefits of Growing Our Retirement

Part of the reasons we embarked on starting a backyard plant nursery was the financial benefits. We wanted to Plant a Better Retirement! While the work is a labor of love we consider our plant nursery to be a true retirement investment. By actually learning to make money with plants it can become an almost perpetual source of income. Not all our retirement income but something meaningful. As we made some plans and projections it became clear that the time to start was sooner, not later. Clearly it is best to start a business before you retire.

Better to learn and make mistakes before you want to be producing some income. We discovered starting a retirement or plant nursery side hustle wasn’t that difficult and is in fact a lot of fun. We even think a plant nursery with predictable income can help you retire earlier or help you Stop Saving for Retirement.

Who are we?

Growing Our Retirement, is written by us a couple with decades of experience in business, finance, and marketing. We have also been growing plants our entire lives. At the same time we have also maintained a larger piece of property for over 20 years. Doing this while also raising a family, holding demanding jobs and managing some rental property. We are now over 12 years of heating our home mostly with firewood. We have also owned businesses successfully as a couple. Since we work together well we may even write about how we make that happen. After close to 40 years together we may share some fun stories and tips on how to work together.

Is growing plants our only plan?

Growing plants for our retirement is not our entire retirement plan as we do have other sources of income. We have been good savers and planned fairly well. Maybe a backyard nursery for you could be a great solution for some additional retirement income! Maybe with some reliable extra income you could leave your current job sooner.

Growing Our Retirement through our backyard plant nursery may become a considerable portion of our income in retirement. If not it will provide some income that will let us leave all or most of our savings to grow. This allows us to continue to let our nest egg grow and enjoy our outdoor lifestyle. We also gain a unique type of financial independence, running our own small business that will make life even more enjoyable.

Welcome to Growing Our Retirement, we appreciate you joining us! We welcome your comments, and we wish you nothing but success.

Some quick links to get you started:

Starting a backyard plant nursery – Getting Started
Make Money With Plants – We can help you make this a reality.
Plant Propagation – With practice you can become a master propagator
Retirement Investment – Plants can be a good retirement investment
Start a business before you retire – Now is the time!
Start a Plant Business – We can show you how.
Backyard Nursery Resources – Our ever growing resources guide for your backyard Plant Nursery

Our Plant Nursery Start Up Series

How to Start a Plant Nursery – With super low start-up costs.
How to Get Free Plants – Your secret start up advantage
Propagate Plants All Year – Always be propagating
Make Your Own Potting mix – Inexpensively for your nursery
Propagate Plants by Dividing – More free plants for your nursery