Hobbies cost money. If you are making money from the hobby is it not a hobby anymore.
Eh.. I try to make money off of all of my hobbies. They aren't my main source of income so they aren't my profession, and I do them for fun as hobbies, but I liek to offset the costs as much as possible, and if possible profit from them. Why not? It's not work if it's fun right?!
I'd agree with the others --- figure if you just skip a trip to the coffee shop once or twice a week - or eat some Ramen noodles for Lunch one or two days a week and put the $ aside that you would have spent otherwise and you can easily cover the expense of a several plants a year. Or just put the spare change that accumulates in your pocket every day into a jar each night and save it for expenses (you'll never notice it missing and it adds up quickly). I'd much rather cut back somewhere else if needed to be able to afford to grow a few plants than start trying to make $ off of them and ruin the enjoyment of growing them ( Once you are relying on a specific result or start thinking about how much $ a mistake during the season costs you the enjoyment of growing quickly fades !!)
That is a relatively easy way to offset the costs of your hobbies, but I know since I like to grow plants indoors year round, and im gonna grow peppers indoors under lights in the cold months, the lights cost a ton.. So it's not really practical not to sell at all
Also, if you want to make money off of peppers themselves, your best bet in terms of profit would be in order:
Sauce (you only need a portion of a super to make an extremely hot sauce.
Plants*
Seeds
Whole Pods Fresh
Whole Pods Dried
Flakes
Powders
*It depends on how much room you have to grow out the plant's because you can turn each seed you harvest into a plant which is worth $5-$20 bucks depending on the size and where you sell it, and the variety. However this takes a lot of space.
Sauce for the reason mentioned is the best for profit.
Whole pods frsh are good because they can sell for a dollar a pod if they are supers.
Drying pods cuts their weight ALOT so you get very litle weight per pod. So unless you sell by the pod instead of by weight, you are losing out a lot here.
Flaking takes the drying size to a whole other level by making them have little air and therefore, you can fit a ton of pods into a small ziplock sandwitch bag. I could fit 50+ flaked bhuts in one bag as opposed to 7-10 fresh ones. Peopel arent going to pay 35-50 bucks for a bag of flakes.
POWDER is horible for money. do you know how many pods you can fit into a tiny container of powder? One ounce is a ton of powder.. For reference, I got 12 decent sized bhuts off my plant into about a tabelspoon of powder.. Ya its potent as hellfire, but nobody is gonna give me more than the $10 i couldve gotten for the pods if they were fresh.
Seeds, if you can isolate them (use pantyhose or mosquito netting if you are growing outdoors), can get you liek a quarter a pop which is a nice profit. BUT you have to isolate them or their value drops significantly.
