A hobby is always a wonderful thing for any individual, but a hobby that produces a profit is something many of us dream about.

Through experience I have learned that a profitable greenhouse is not necessarily a high-priced one. Proper planning and various economies can keep construction costs to a minimum. But whatever you plan to spend (or have already spent), you'll find that your outlay can be completely recovered in earnings from a single plant project. I did it - and you can, too.

A Greenhouse for You

There are many types of greenhouse to choose from. There is the low-cost (often heatless) pit greenhouse; the lean-to; the attached-to-the-dwelling greenhouse; and the free-standing greenhouse which often has a handsome exterior. The outside design, however, no matter how beautifully executed, is of minor significance when it comes to profits. In greenhouse growing, it's the interior that counts.

Building your greenhouse can be a family project, or you can get professional help to erect all or part of it. A cement contractor built the foundation and walk for ours, and we did the rest ourselves. Your profit-making greenhouse can cost you as little as $75, or it can run into hundreds and even thousands. You can build with inexpensive second-hand materials from an old dismantled greenhouse, buy all new material, build a plastic greenhouse or construct your house with completely or partially prefabricated sections.

What to Grow

Your very first year of under-glass gardening (a term that now means under-plastic, too) can show a profit, even if you are not an expert gardener. Indeed, the plants that are easiest to grow may be the very ones to click in your neighborhood. Wax begonias, ivy, marigolds, philodendron, petunias, coleus, and cacti can be real profit-makers. Today every city has supermarkets, dime stores, and roadside markets, and these are all potential outlets for such plants. In Minneapolis, some of the drugstores carry small plants, and there are cafes where you can buy a pretty pink begonia as well as a blue-plate luncheon.

Many new home owners know little about gardening but welcome colorful plants if they don't cost very much, say 49 or 98 cents each. These may or may not be profitable enough for local florists, but suit to a T your kind of business.

Mail Order

Your choice of profit-making plants may be dictated somewhat by your indoor gardening experience and the time you have spent as a hobby gardener or collector. As you gain experience your horizons will widen.

Many amateurs have learned through round robins (correspondence groups) what collector friends through the country are buying - or trying to buy. If you plan to go into the mail-order business, it would be a good idea to join one or more of these groups. They will give you some good leads.

Some garden magazines and many of the plant societies sponsor round robins. Membership in plant society round robins is free with membership. The addresses of various plant societies will usually be found at the back of any magazine which sponsors round-robin groups.

If you enjoy growing uncommon or exotic plants - the so-called collectors' items - and yours is a small community where sales for these would be limited, you can solve your dilemma by carrying on a mail-order business. Doing business through the mail is not difficult.

There is much learn about running a profitable greenhouse, but this will set you off on the right foot.