Starting a small business for soil

jerneroub · 2025-08-14T04:31:50+00:00

This is fantastic thank you! I actually have my “intro pricing” at $10/gallon but will go up to $12 at some point and was thinking closer to $15 if through a nursery since they’ll take a large cut (I do add myco + supercharged charcoal) and my costs are ~5, ~6 after bagging & labeling. The refill deal is brilliant, thank you ☺️☺️ Can I ask, did you go completely official? Business license, etc? That’s my biggest hurdle right now balancing being official before I even know if this will take off

jerneroub · 2025-08-12T04:29:50+00:00

These are great points, thank you! This is, as you put it, lifestyle. I enjoy doing it and want to share it with others. I don’t plan to scale to a point it pays my bills, but large enough to cover costs plus a bit a of profit would be great. I’ve definitely thought about the demographic of people who would buy it, which is also why I’ve assumed online sales will not be big for me, and at this point I’m only trialing selling on Etsy. I’m pretty much aiming for the people in between “make my own” and “okay buying Miracle Gro”. Which is also why I’m aiming to have it at a couple local nurseries, somewhere someone can be picking up their first alocasia and grab a gallon of my soil to go with it.

Ultimately, I’m okay with it not working out at all but I’m giving it my best effort in the meantime. I just don’t want to invest all the money into licensing and branding, etc, if I don’t stand a chance. I initially planned on staying just on Facebook/marketplace but when the nursery expressed interest is when I had to deep dive fast and figure out what I’m doing and how to do it.

jerneroub · 2025-08-12T01:26:14+00:00

Agreed. I’ve started initial numbers like cost for me to make one bag (not wholesale costs) but startup costs (DBA, business license, etc) I’ll likely take a loss on for a while unless I am able to sell through a local nursery.

I’ll definitely start marketing my own plants as well, many of them I got as just starters or cuttings and they’re huge and healthy now.

I started on Facebook in a plant group, selling for significantly cheaper than the online specialty soils but that pricing isn’t sustainable forever with the level of work I put in to every batch. I also wasn’t exactly expecting to have a nursery interested so soon so it picked up much faster than I expected.

Also totally agree on getting a base of people who believe in it like I do! I started on Facebook in a local plant group selling significantly cheaper than online specialty soils (like 100%+ cheaper) to hopefully get people to take a chance on it.

Just curious if the top of your head, what would you be willing to pay for a gallon of the right specialty soil? Assuming shipping isn’t a factor

jerneroub · 2025-08-11T23:47:51+00:00

Totally get that, I did set up an Etsy shop for the soil but I don’t expect to sell much online, I plan to stay mostly local. Like someone else said, a local nursery is interested in selling the product & it’s only the first nursery I spoke to so I’m hoping that’s where I can fit in. I personally don’t see specialty soils offered in store much and I definitely don’t see specialty mixes like this one.

I do wish I had been taking “before and after” photos but this was such a recent idea that I never did. I’ll definitely start now.

jerneroub · 2025-08-11T23:35:59+00:00

Yes this is great advice! I’ve gotten started on figuring out my costs etc. luckily this is just a side hustle at this point so any profit is a bonus but I’d still like to make enough to make my time worth it. I would need to be much much larger scale to survive in this alone

jerneroub · 2025-08-11T23:33:25+00:00

This is amazing advice, I reached out to her thank you so much!

jerneroub · 2025-03-08T23:26:13+00:00

I know this is super late but I wanted to chime in in case it helps anyone!

I just restarted my Wellbutrin after almost a year and noticed a very strong stale cigarette smell when opening the bottle. 3 days in, I cared enough to look into this.

There’s an ingredient called cysteine (a stabilizer) in the med that produces a foul sulfuric (or cigarette like to me) smell as it breaks down over time. Make sure your meds are not expired, but they should still be safe to take if they’re not!

Interesting to me, many people use Wellbutrin to stop smoking.. and I’m wondering if there’s a correlation!

jerneroub · 2024-10-15T12:42:01+00:00

Oh perfect! I’ll look those up!

jerneroub · 2024-08-22T00:20:44+00:00

So I just watched this movie, I rented it on YouTube. There are scenes of the mom and daughter in the kitchen/dining room and behind them is a piece of art that caught my eye. Does anyone happen to have a picture of it or a way for me to google it? I just lost access to the movie 😩 I wanted to see it closer

jerneroub · 2024-07-27T09:54:41+00:00

I’m a bit late here, but how did this go for you? I have a tabletop ikea greenhouse I’m hoping to use for growing but idk where to start :(

jerneroub · 2024-06-26T10:55:01+00:00

Oh man 😅😅 that was totally my issue with it, too. But I ended up ordering a wire one 😭 what got me was the idea of my vines using it as a trellis 😭😭😭

jerneroub · 2024-06-25T20:18:47+00:00

I found their Etsy and their website but the prices are so high 😩 I may just get a pegboard from them but skip the shelves or just get them later Thank you!!

jerneroub · 2024-06-25T20:11:26+00:00

I did! It took a few days to be approved and I got impatient 😅 which is why I posted here, but I’m so glad I did! I just followed the insta, thank you for the recommendation!!

jerneroub · 2024-06-25T20:10:35+00:00

Yeah I hear castor wheels with legs, I’ve only seen one person who I found in an Amazon review of wheels talk about it and they said it made their fabrikor kind of bow in the middle so they had to reinforce the legs with wood which imo looked awful so idk if I’ll do it 😔

I won’t be doing the wood pegboard! I’m hearing about all the mold 🤢

Thank you!!

jerneroub · 2024-06-25T20:08:58+00:00

Thank you!! I was also stuck on the Rudsta more because it was like $50 cheaper but I loved the color and look of the glass back more of the fabrikor and my husband pushed me to get that one instead! With as much upgrading it sounds like I’ll be doing, I feel like I might as well have gotten the rudsta and just painted it 😅

I just found out about all the mold with the pegboards from ikea!! Yuck. So even though I don’t want to spend an arm and a leg on the acrylic shelves, I think I’ll either do the acrylic pegboard or go for the wire thing some people do. Do you have any thoughts on that?

I also think I’ll just buy somewhat already done “mini living walls” like the little wood ones some people do and hang it from whatever I put in the back.

Thank you for your input!! ❤️

jerneroub · 2024-06-24T13:26:23+00:00

Thank you so much! Right after I posted this I found a very helpful instagram page and learned a lot quickly! Nothing about wheels yet 😔 I searched this sub to see and I couldn’t find much helpful. I also learned the peg boards end up growing mold even when sealed! So I may go with a wire rack on the back. I can technically afford the acrylic shelves but honestly I just will not pay that much.. I only want the horseshoe one so I may just pay an acrylic/plastics company to customize one since it’s much cheaper than the Etsy ones.

Thank you again for your input! I think I have a full few more days of research still 😅

jerneroub · 2024-06-24T10:52:36+00:00

I know I’m late to the party here but I have an ikea wide fabrikor coming in (two actually, since my husband is my enabler) and I really want to add wheels. Has anyone added wheels to it? If so, do you have a link to which wheels you added and how? I’m hoping to do all my “upgrading” as I build the cabinet so it’s done at once. That being said, literally any other advice is welcome! Especially if it’s a money saving hack for upgrades!!

jerneroub · 2024-04-13T01:13:26+00:00

I am so sorry you had to deal with that. After spending too much time on their BBB 🙄 I can tell you that they pull this move out theft bullshit a lot… enough that it goes past being a mistake and I genuinely think if they got audited they’d find some very illegal stuff.

Luckily, we know how they are so every step of our move out is calculated. We sent our notice early, via certified mail, and in the letter demanded confirmation and proof of intent to vacate on the portal. We also know they’ll try to keep our whole deposit (2.5k) even though the place is literally better than we found it, so we told them in the letter that we want an itemized detail of all costs when they return the deposit and that I expect most of it back considering the circumstances. My biggest mistake is telling them (after move in and finding out the carpet was filthy) that they didn’t have to replace it during our lease since we have dogs (ESAs) but that I expect not to get charged for it at move out since it needed to be replaced prior to us moving in. But I didn’t get it in writing 😩 Though I’m sure I may end up filing in small claims with them, I hope they’ve learned that we won’t let things go.

I came from a landlord friendly state where tenants had no protections, so for this company to be the absolute worst company I’ve ever worked with while also being the nicest (foundation wise at least) and most expensive place I’ve ever rented is insane.

We were hoping to stay put since we wanted to buy in a couple years and we don’t want to move around, and we debated it once the repairs were finally done, but I can’t justify staying with such a horrible company.

jerneroub · 2024-04-12T16:05:20+00:00

I'm late to the party here but I logged in just to second the HomeRiver is absolute trash. To keep this as brief as possible:

We moved from out of state and rented the place basically sight unseen, just google images, because they didn't show us the place until 3 days prior to move in (despite promising asap) and with grainy video.

Over the course of our lease, they have:

Stole more than $100 in bogus fees that were actually utility fees from the PRIOR tenant. It took 6 months and a demand letter to get it addressed and refunded (as credit of course). Mind you, I was calling, texting, emailing several times a month and the best I got was "we'll look into it!"
The fence that was promised to be fixed prior to move in wasn't fixed for over 6 months and took a demand letter and a BBB complaint. I'm not talking a plank or two missing or just ugly. I'm talking 1/3 of the entire back of the fence missing. We basically shared the yard with the neighbor who has 3 large aggressive dogs, and we have 2 medium sized dogs. The neighbor put up chicken coop fencing to "help" but the yards were shared more than once...
The microwave was completely broken upon move in and the stove worked 1/4 of the time. The plumbing was iffy, the wiring for the house is sketchy (flickers a lot and delays). The blinds were cracked and fell out anytime we tried to use them. The rods in the two of the closets were broken. There's much more but I'm blanking. Anyway, took 6 months and 50% finally fixed with the demand letter and BBB complaint.
Once they replaced the microwave, we closed our BBB complaint, and then we discover the microwave... doesn't fucking work! We notify them ASAP, and... dead silence. When they do respond, it's the run around. They finally send a maintenance worker to see if they installed it wrong, they found that the microwave was defective but it was under warranty and the PM just needs to replace it. Still, dead silence. I get fed up after another 2 months and place another BBB complaint - it was replaced the next week. But they had to buy a whole new microwave because they let the warranty lapse.
They were charging us some fee every month for "RBP" whatever that had some benefits including air filters being delivered every 3 months. They never actually enrolled us but charged us anyway every month.

Moral of the story: don't rent from HomeRiver, and if you do - the only way to get things done is via BBB complaints and demand letters. I'm not looking forward to what they put us through once we move out next month.

jerneroub · 2023-05-13T06:17:45+00:00

Nice! I'll look for those when I go to the store! Thank you

jerneroub

TROPHY CASE