5 Ways to make a little extra money from your homestead:

If you're living on a small farm or piece of land, or even if you're stuck in a city there are many ways to make a little extra money if you're willing to put some thought into it, some planning and a lot of hard work. Here are a few ideas that I've done on my small farm or have seen other people doing. Maybe you'll get a little inspiration from these tips.

Garden. If you have some land, and it doesn't even have to be much, there are many ways to make a little extra money with your garden. The obvious one of course is to grow extra produce and sell it to friends, neighbors, co-workers or set up a booth at a farmers market. My suggestion is to choose produce that you enjoy eating as a family. Don't grow eggplant if you don't like eating it, in other words. If you're new at gardening, don't try growing something super difficult. Look up your growing/planting chart and plant by the moon cycle and weather patterns to have more success. Do your research before you start. Example of my own experience is that I wanted to start a flower market garden to sell cut flowers, but I didn't research the types of flowers that would grow in my area and basically most of my flowers didn't grow, except zinnias. Those grew like crazy. Another aspect of the garden income would be to grow heirloom vegetables instead of hybrids. Save the seeds and sell those.  You might need to get a license for that but it is one way to for sure save money if you save your own seed for future years of gardening. The cost of seeds adds up if you don't save every year. You can also grow starter plants and sell to others. We had great success selling herb seedlings every year at the farmers markets. You need to plan well ahead in order for your seedlings to be big enough at the right time to get them in the ground. If you have enough land to have a very large garden you could plant enough to offer a pick your own options and charge people to come pick their own produce. That is quite popular if you have the patience to deal with people coming and walking in your garden and if you live close enough to a large population. We tried it but didn't like that result, but our garden wasn't quite big enough. If you get really good at gardening, you could offer your services to other people in helping them to start their gardens, charge them for the mentorship or for the actual work depending on what you are capable of.


Chickens are another way to make a little extra money, and of course there are several ways to utilize them for extra dollars. The main way of course is to sell the eggs. Another way that I've used which made me more money than just the eggs, was to hatch chicks and sell those. Of course that also involves purchasing an incubator. You could also hatch eggs for other people if you get the right kind of incubator. That has been quite good for my pocketbook. The other way to make money with chickens is to gather and bag up the manure and sell that to budding city gardeners who don't have access to manures. Chicken manure is a great way to add nitrogen to a garden soil. 


Cottage industry is a way to add value to your products. If you take your cucumbers and turn them into pickles you can make quite a bit more money for the cucumbers. Jams are an excellent way to add value to your fruits if you have an orchard or even some berry plants.  If you're good at baking, making bread is a great cottage industry food that people love to buy. Another side of it would be the gluten free side of baking and making. So many people now days have gluten intolerances and there's a wide open market for home baked gluten free items. Each state has their list of foods that are able to be made and sold in a home kitchen before having to move up to commercial kitchen production. You need to look up the labeling requirements for your state and make sure not to make illegal cottage foods but this is definitely a way that I've used to add value to my hard work in the garden and orchard. 


Handmade cards is a way that I personally haven't tried much but have seen several people try and do well at. If you're creative and artistic you can gather flowers, press them and use them as ink stamps or add them to your cards and make very attractive cards that people would love to purchase. 


Foraging is a good way if you have lots of land or places with woods to forage on. You can find herbs, nuts, berries and probably lots of other edible things that you could use either to concoct remedies if you are into natural medicine or at the least you can use foraging to save money in your household.  There are also so many things in the wild that would make great craft items. Think of cool shaped logs or sticks that could become lamps or lampshades or pieces of an art project. If you come across a good nut tree you can gather those and make pies to sell, or grind up the nut flour for baking. Benefits to foraging are that you get yourself out in nature and exercise. You do need to have the knowledge or do the research to know what to forage for as far as plants go.


There are so many more options for making money from a homestead but these are a few that I've tried or seen other people try and have been successful in adding income. Place a comment below if you have tried any of these or if you have any other great ideas.

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