I EARN $20 AN HOUR...RAISING VIOLETS

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Beautiful African violets like the ones shown to the left are grown by Mrs. Mary Fink of Hendersonville, North Carolina in the simple, straightforward setup pictured immediately below. Mrs. Fink raises the flowers in her basement and sells them from a booth at the indoor ""curb market"" which is open three mornings each week in MOTHER's own little mountain town. Note the differences as well as the similarities between Mrs. Fink's operation and the drawing of Phillip S. Duke's own African violet growing bench in Chicago.

You can start a mini-farm right in your basement... and make good money doing it.

Beautiful, blooming African violets are really easy to grow, once you know how. They're also quite easy to sell ... especially in the winter, when so many folks are anxious to brighten their homes with pretty flowering houseplants.

Put these two factease of cultivation and active demandtogether ... and what have you got? A mighty attractive cash crop, that's what. I've found that a single 4 X 10-foot bench of African violets in the basement of my suburban Chicago home requires an average of only one-half hour of care a day ... yet, after expenses, nets me $3,696 a year. That's $20 an hour, whicheven in these inflationary timesis pretty good pay in anybody's book. And the benchful of colorful plants that I have for my own enjoyment most of the time is a nice little extra bonus that doesn't cost me a cent!

YOU CAN GROW'EM ANYWHERE!

If you're fortunate enough to live in frost-free sections of California or Florida, you can really go into the African violet business in a big way at very little cost by raising the plants outdoors in a shaded area. The rest of us can grow the violets too, of course, but we have to protect 'em from the winter's cold (frost will kill the plants). That "protection", however, is not as difficult as you might think.

African violets thrive on windowsills, in greenhouses, and under artificial lights. This gives you a lot of latitude when you're setting yourself up to grow these flowers.

Then again, If you really want to make money at home with African violets, you probably won't try to raise them on windowsills (unless you have an awful lot of windows). And, at least in the beginning, It's doubtful that you'll want to build a greenhouse just for this business until you've at least proven out the profit potential of African violets for yourself. (Besides, who can afford to beat a greenhouse with fossil fuels these days? If you do put up a greenhouse for this project, you'd be wise to make sure it's heated only with solar and other natural sources of energy.)

Which sort of narrows you down to starting your African violet business under lights. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. The plants do very well under artificial illumination ... and light gardening is an economical and easy way to raise and bloom the violets in quantity.

SPARE ROOMS OR BASEMENTS MAKE GOOD "FARMS"

Almost any spare living space in your house can be converted into an African violet garden. An "extra" bedroom or that den or sewing room that no one ever seems to use will do just fine. On the other hand, most of the small-scale commercial violet growers I know put their mini-farms in the basement. Not because the flower nurseries have to be there ... but because it's usually just easier to set up and operate the violet beds down cellar. (Plants do have to be watered, you know, and water sometimes spills over onto the floor, and such accidents generally are of far less concern in a basement.)