the cactus farm business

[scaredyclassic]

i love cacti. the hardiness, the adapability, the spininess. i like how they dont die if not cared for for a while. low water usage.

i already have a bunch, but not thousands.

I am thinking about starting a small cactus nursery at my place.

Plants can be a form of investment, becoming much more valuable with time, certainly the case with cacti. start off witha small plant worth a few dollars, 10 years later, you have a 150$ cacti.

it’s the long, slow game.

[gzz]

SD County is the USA’s largest producer of nursery plants, centered in inland Encinitas, and also avocados. If you want to farm, those are what we’re well suited for.

You’re not going to get anyone to come to your place and pay $150 for a cactus though. Maybe if you throw in delivery and installation.

[svelte]

If you love cactus, then you have to visit Lotusland in Montecito. They have the most spectacular cactus area I have ever seen, donated by Merritt Dunlap in 1999. His entire collection was carefully moved to Lotusland so it could be enjoyed after his death. One can spend 30 min – 1 hr just walking through the cactus.

There are some photos of it here, mixed in with the rest of the photos of the grounds, but it really doesn’t do the cactus collection justice. You have to see it to believe it.

We’re members there.

https://www.lotusland.org/photography-gallery/

[svelte]

Here’s a better description, but the photos still don’t tell even show a fraction of the collection.

Apparently 530 cacti were trucked to Lotusland from Dunlap’s property. This page talks about what is involved with replanting them.

https://www.lotusland.org/gardens/the-gardens/cactus-garden/

https://www.lotusland.org/gardens/the-gardens/cacti-euphorbias/

[scaredyclassic]

Thanks
Will check out.
With time, growing from seed, this seems like it cant help but be profitable.
I enjoy my cacti.
I already cultivated on entire hillside, about 5000plus sq ft, all cacti and native plants over about 7 years. Now weed free there.

I think i would enjoy this anyway, and the plants would have some value

[sdrealtor]

generally speaking the longer you keep them the more valuable they get as they get bigger. There’s a guy in Encinitas that’s been doing it for decades. He’s on crest and his business is known as the cactus king

Update: Just looked them up and I guess he’s gone. Land probably got too valuable and he got too old

[scaredyclassic]

The prices of columnar cacti at nurseries i visit are so high. I saw a 5 footer for 200$ imagine having a 1000 of them!

[sdrealtor]

[quote=scaredyclassic]The prices of columnar cacti at nurseries i visit are so high. I saw a 5 footer for 200$ imagine having a 1000 of them![/quote]

Imagine trying to sell a 1000 of them

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=sdrealtor][quote=scaredyclassic]The prices of columnar cacti at nurseries i visit are so high. I saw a 5 footer for 200$ imagine having a 1000 of them![/quote]

Imagine trying to sell a 1000 of them[/quote]
they sell as they grow, very slowly.

[svelte]

[quote=scaredyclassic][quote=sdrealtor][quote=scaredyclassic]The prices of columnar cacti at nurseries i visit are so high. I saw a 5 footer for 200$ imagine having a 1000 of them![/quote]

Imagine trying to sell a 1000 of them[/quote]
they sell as they grow, very slowly.[/quote]

Watch out for gophers.

https://www.farmprogress.com/irrigation/cactus-farming-future-california

[gzz]

Gophers are really bad at my place, especially destructive of fruit trees and lawn grass. To protect the trees, I dig a huge hole before planting them and line it with two layers of chicken wire. This is time consuming but fully effective.

Birds also try to steal my peaches, though not other fruit. I put up a reflective tape and scarecrow this year. This has mostly worked, but one day I did see several fruits with beak marks on them.

[scaredyclassic]

I have 4 cats, each eats at least a gopher a day, maybe 2. Still too many gophers. Will think on it. Could be reason to live, in retirement ,battling gophers. Caddyshack.

[svelte]

[quote=scaredyclassic]I have 4 cats, each eats at least a gopher a day, maybe 2. Still too many gophers. Will think on it. Could be reason to live, in retirement ,battling gophers. Caddyshack.[/quote]

You could keep the cacti in plastic pots, like nurseries do with their plants. Bigger up front costs but makes transportation easier and less risky to the plant at time of sale, and pretty much eliminates the gopher issue.

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=svelte][quote=scaredyclassic]I have 4 cats, each eats at least a gopher a day, maybe 2. Still too many gophers. Will think on it. Could be reason to live, in retirement ,battling gophers. Caddyshack.[/quote]

You could keep the cacti in plastic pots, like nurseries do with their plants. Bigger up front costs but makes transportation easier and less risky to the plant at time of sale, and pretty much eliminates the gopher issue.[/quote]

Yes

[svelte]

[quote=scaredyclassic][quote=svelte][quote=scaredyclassic]I have 4 cats, each eats at least a gopher a day, maybe 2. Still too many gophers. Will think on it. Could be reason to live, in retirement ,battling gophers. Caddyshack.[/quote]

You could keep the cacti in plastic pots, like nurseries do with their plants. Bigger up front costs but makes transportation easier and less risky to the plant at time of sale, and pretty much eliminates the gopher issue.[/quote]

Yes[/quote]

Of course, then you have another problem….the pots “growing legs” in the middle of the night and walking into a thief’s trunk…gotta deal with varmints of one kind or another…

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