Making Money with Herbs
Fresh Herbs: Many herbs such as rosemary, thyme, dill, oregano and others are used in eateries on a regular basis. They also are highly desired at farmers markets and road side stands. These herbs in my opinion are extremely easy to grow and we always seem to have a great abundance of them. Cultivated and planted in a permaculture design I believe little actual crop space would have to be devoted to obtain a sustainable weekly harvest.
Dried Herbs: This we do for our friends all the time, but I’m not sure about the laws surrounding selling dried herbs. I’m sure it wouldn’t be too difficult. Every year the ceilings in all of our buildings are hanging with fresh herbs drying in the rafters. We grind these up and bottle them to give away. I can’t imagine you would make tons of money on this, but it would add to your layout at a farmers market or store shelves. Dried thyme brings about $12 a pound, Sage about $10 and Rosemary about $14 for example.
Medicinal Herbs: This is more my specialty. I’ve grown and wildcrafted herbs for a # of years. For a few years I even had an extensive lab set up in my massage office where I processed and kept hundreds of herbs in stock. Today in California they are sold as “herbal supplements” and not as”medicine”. However, this is a huge market and if it were done 100% organic, plus you marketed the product as grown within permaculture principles and from the community I believe this would be an excellent income for the community. It is important that people know where things they take 
internally come from. There is a level of trust in that as opposed being poisoned by GMOs in non labeled food products. I digress, but truly I believe this could be a really big income because people believe there is a real healing energy in products that are grown in a conscious environment.
Let me give you some hard #s from Tim Blakley’s book (top left of this page). I briefly studied with Tim in 2004 and trust his information implicitly. This book was published in 1999 so these prices would be even greater today.
- St. John’s Wort $8 per pound. Considered a weed here in California and easy to find and grow. As far as the price, I know you could make triple that by using it in your own bottled formulas. It wasn’t unusual for me to sell out of a 16oz mix I made with St. John as the base for $75.
- Grindelia the antidote to poison oak sold for $14 an 8oz bottle.
- Elderberry dried flowers $15 per pound. Much more when in a tincture.
- Echinacea angustifolia root sold for $40 a dry pound. Seed $300 a pound. *You have to remember it takes 3 years to get a harvestable root. Not a problem if you planted every year.
This is just a sample, if you want to know more prices get Tim’s book. It may be updated by now.