Owners of summer cottages, by definition, have slightly more opportunities to organize a home business. You can, for example, not only engage in gardening or growing fruits and vegetables, but also get pets. Although, of course, many summer residents and novice entrepreneurs prefer plant growing to caring for animals. This is not only a less time-consuming undertaking, the cultivation of vegetables and fruits, in addition, does not require such large financial investments and constant (daily) control, and it pays off faster.
One of the good ideas for a business is growing garlic.
Land plot
The cultivation of garlic on an industrial scale implies the presence of a land plot of about twenty acres (a minimum of 10 x 20 meters). A summer cottage is perfect for organizing a small business, but in its absence land for agricultural purposes can be rented. When searching for a suitable place, it is worth giving preference to sandy soils or lands such as chernozem, which are the most fertile and allow you to grow a really high-quality crop.
Renting land within the Moscow region, of course, is too expensive for a novice entrepreneur. So, a plot (twenty hundred square meters) near the Rechnoy Vokzal metro station will cost 185 thousand rubles a month, that is, more than two million will only have to be paid for a rental per year. In the Smolensk region, for example, renting a similar site will be only 20 thousand rubles / month, or 240 thousand per year.
Type and grade of garlic
Having decided on the land for planting, you should pay attention to the choice of type and variety of garlic and the purchase of planting material. Growing garlic as a business ideally involves the implementation of large batches of product with a long shelf life, in addition, it is desirable to get large onions and cloves - such a product is sold faster. But each type has its advantages and disadvantages:
Growing spring garlic allows you to get a product with a long shelf life, but the small size of the bulbs and cloves, in addition, you can encounter low productivity.
Growing winter garlic as a business is more profitable, as it allows to achieve high yields and large sizes of bulbs, but such garlic is poorly preserved, there is a risk of freezing.
As for the varieties, it is best for a business to consider the following:
Lyubasha. Differs in unpretentiousness to weather conditions and good keeping quality (storage duration), frost-resistant.
Ukrainian purple and white. Garlic is very well preserved, the yield is about two hundred kilograms per one hundred square meters of land.
Spas The variety is perfectly preserved, resistant to diseases and parasites. The yield of garlic is twenty tons of product per hectare.
Kharkov purple. Frost-resistant and relatively resistant to disease, the yield of garlic is average - you can get about one hundred and twenty kilograms of product per hundred square meters of land.
Gulliver. Mid-late variety, which is characterized by high productivity, spicy taste and long shelf life (up to eight months).
Benefit. Adapts to various climatic conditions, differs in frost resistance, keeping quality (stored up to ten months).
Planting material
Growing garlic as a business will require the purchase of a batch of planting material. For sowing twenty acres you will need up to a thousand cloves of garlic. So, with an average weight of one clove of 15-20 grams (Lyubasha grade), you need to purchase about twenty kilograms of garlic, which will cost only 2200 rubles. In the calculations, the wholesale price of planting material (110 rubles / kg) was taken into account.
Machinery, equipment and workers
The cultivation of garlic on an industrial scale, of course, requires the involvement of agricultural machinery, since sowing twenty acres on your own is quite laborious. So, it is possible to rent a tractor not for the period of active work. Acquiring the equipment for full personal use is not entirely advisable. In addition, shovels, rakes and watering cans will be required.
Growing garlic as a business does not require a permanent staff. During the period of planting and harvesting, it is possible to attract local pensioners, schoolchildren or the unemployed to work for a small fee.
Growing technology
Garlic, the cultivation methods of which vary somewhat depending on the type, is generally not too picky to care for. Spring planting is carried out in April - the first half of May, winter - in late September - early October. The first type must be planted in the furrows quite tightly: between the teeth should be left about ten centimeters, and between the rows - fifteen to twenty. For winter garlic, the distance should be ten to twelve centimeters between the cloves and about thirty between the rows.
Planting material - garlic (cultivation and care in the open field for which are described in the review in sufficient detail) - must be disinfected immediately before planting. To do this, prepare two solutions:
Six tablespoons of ordinary table salt per ten liters of water.
One tablespoon (or three teaspoons) of copper sulfate in the same amount of clean water.
In the first composition, planting material must be lowered for one and a half to two minutes, in the second - for a minute. After you can start planting, but the garlic does not need to be washed additionally with clean water.
Care consists in periodically weeding the beds (if necessary) and timely watering. It is better to cover winter garlic in the fall with fir branches, dry foliage or special material. In spring, you should remove all unnecessary from the beds. In addition, in the spring, plants can be fed with urea, from time to time (twice a month), garlic should be fertilized. With the active growth of the shooter, it is better to pinch them off - so garlic, growing and caring in the open ground for which does not cause any special problems, grows larger.
Harvesting takes place in mid-July (for winter) or late August (for spring garlic). After you need to cut the garlic, rinse and dry the product in vivo (under a light canopy in the fresh air) for at least a week. Ready-for-sale goods should be stored in wooden crates in a well-ventilated area.
Tips & Tricks
The features of growing garlic are known to every summer resident who at least once came across this plant:
garlic does not like excessive moisture, so watering should be dosed;
a sufficient amount of sunlight affects the yield well;
it is better to plant the plant in the beds where cabbage, pumpkin, and beans used to grow;
for feeding, it is preferable to use wood ash.
In general, growing garlic is not such a difficult process. And if you follow the technology, fertilize the beds in time and monitor the plants, you can expect abundant crops.
Harvest Implementation
To organize sales, if garlic cultivation is considered as a business, it is most profitable at once to the final consumer, that is, retail. Wholesale buyers can be:
catering enterprises (in small batches);
pharmaceutical companies;
canneries and meat processing enterprises ;
vegetable resellers and outlets (small wholesale);
large chains of retail stores.
Promotion and development
Growing garlic as a business involves finding wholesale customers. So, you can place an ad in local newspapers, gardening magazines, online catalogs. At retail, they more often begin to sell to friends and neighbors, after which advertising is built on the principle of word of mouth. Promotion of goods on the Internet, which has become an effective method of increasing sales in modern realities, is inappropriate for this business. It is possible to develop business either by increasing volumes, or by replacing the product - it is beneficial to grow parsley, onions, strawberries, and other crops.
Start-up capital
So, summarizing all of the above, we can say that a small business in the cultivation of garlic for the purpose of further sales of the product does not require significant financial investments. It will only be required:
rent a land plot (taking into account an area of twenty hundred parts), which will cost an average of two hundred and forty thousand rubles a year;
purchase planting material in the required quantity, the cost of which will be up to three thousand rubles;
purchase shovels, watering cans, rakes and other equipment and enlist the help of several workers;
pay for the water used to irrigate the beds, and buy fertilizers, top dressing.
So, for the organization of a business for the cultivation and sale of garlic at first, it will take from ten to one hundred thousand rubles.
Business payback
From twenty hundred square meters of land you can collect four tons of garlic (variety: Ukrainian white and purple) or more - depending on growing conditions, variety and other nuances. At a wholesale price of one hundred and ten rubles per kilogram, the revenue for the entire product will be four hundred and forty thousand rubles. Business pays off in just one season.
If you organize retail sales, then you can earn even more: from one million two hundred thousand rubles. True, selling four tons of the product at retail is not so simple. So, a business plan for growing garlic with a reasonable approach from the entrepreneur has every chance of successful implementation and high profits.