While doing keyword research for a client, Alston Godbolt stumbled onto something that stopped him cold: a niche with hundreds of thousands of searchable keywords, millions of monthly views, and almost no serious competition from big publishers. It was not a flashy tech niche. It was not crypto or AI or “passive income.” It was gardening, specifically the corner of gardening where people ask when to plant specific things in their specific location, and that corner was wide open for small content creators to walk in and own.
In this breakdown, you will see exactly how tiny websites are pulling in traffic worth over $8,000 per month from ads alone, how a YouTube channel with only 1,100 subscribers got 6,700 views on a single video, and how a TikTok account racked up 468,000 views just by answering one planting question. Then you will see the six specific ways to turn that traffic into real income, including affiliate programs, digital planners, and email funnels that require no big audience and no special expertise to start.
What You’ll Walk Out With
- The exact gardening sub-niche Alston found during client keyword research and why it has almost zero competition
- Real keyword numbers: search volume, keyword difficulty scores, and how many sub-keywords exist inside this one topic cluster
- Proof from real small creators on Google, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok showing this works without a big following
- Six distinct monetization methods you can stack in this niche, from Amazon Associates to Etsy digital products
- The Seeds Now affiliate program details (25% commission, 60-day cookie window) that most gardening creators are ignoring
- A content strategy for which states to target first, which plants to cover, and how to prioritize when you are starting from scratch
- A seven-step action plan so you can start creating content today rather than sitting on the fence
- If you are still figuring out which niche fits you, start with the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com
The Gardening Niche Nobody in Affiliate Marketing Is Talking About
Most people who want to make money online with content go hunting in the same crowded spaces: personal finance, fitness, tech reviews, or how to make money online itself. Those niches are dominated by channels with millions of subscribers and blogs with domain authority built over years of consistent publishing. Breaking in as a brand-new creator is genuinely hard.
The gardening niche is different, and the “when to plant” sub-niche is even more different. Alston was deep in keyword research for a Pro Launch Blogger client when he pulled up a keyword cluster around planting schedules. What he found was hundreds of thousands of keywords, millions of monthly views, and very few established players competing for them. The search intent is simple and specific: people want to know when to plant a specific thing in their specific location. That kind of hyper-local, hyper-specific intent is exactly what small sites can win, because big media companies rarely build out state-by-state content for every vegetable on the planet.
Alston also points out that this niche crosses every major platform. People search for it on Google, they pin it on Pinterest, they watch it on YouTube, and they scroll past it on TikTok. That means you are not locked into one content format. You can write blog posts, record short videos, create static pins, or do all three at once to maximize your reach from the same pool of research.
The Sub-Niche in Detail: When to Plant What, Where
Within the general gardening niche, there is a topic of planting calendars and schedules. Within that, there is a layer that is almost untouched: when to plant specific vegetables and flowers in specific US states or growing zones. This is where the keyword numbers get interesting.
Take the keyword “when to plant tomatoes.” It gets over 5,000 monthly searches and has a keyword difficulty score of 32. That is competitive but beatable with solid content. Now shift slightly to “when to plant tomatoes in NC” for North Carolina, and the keyword difficulty drops to zero. Not low. Zero. A brand-new blog with no backlinks, no domain authority, and no publishing history could rank on the first page of Google for that search with a well-written article.
The phrase “when to plant tomatoes in [location]” as a keyword cluster gets 12,000 searches per month and contains 562 individual keywords. That is 562 separate articles you could write, each targeting a different state, region, or growing zone. Add potatoes, peppers, tulip bulbs, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and dozens of other plants, and you are looking at thousands of rankable, low-competition keyword targets that a small creator can work through one at a time.
States where people are actively searching for this guidance include North Carolina, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, and Oklahoma. But all 50 states and most Canadian provinces have their own growing zones and unique planting windows, which means every state is a potential article and every plant is a new cluster of sub-keywords to explore.
Alston also notes that you could take two different approaches to content strategy. You could go narrow and own the state-level keywords for one plant, like building out all 50 states for tomatoes. Or you could go broad and cover the top-level searches like “when to plant tulip bulbs” or “when to plant sunflowers” before working down into the state-level variations. Both approaches work. The right one depends on which you will stick to long enough to generate real traffic.
Proof That Small Creators Are Already Winning This Niche
One of the most reassuring parts of this video is that Alston does not just describe an opportunity in theory. He pulls up real examples, on screen, of small creators already making this work. These are not big media companies or established gardening brands. They are small sites and tiny channels doing what you could do starting this week.
On Google: A small site focused on “when to plant potatoes in North Carolina” ranks on the first page of Google. The blog post is only about 1,225 words long. Alston notes that a more comprehensive post would likely outrank it. At its peak, this site was generating a traffic value of over $8,000 per month from display ads alone, meaning advertisers were paying that much to reach its readers. The traffic has since dipped, but Alston’s point stands: if they did it once, they can do it again.
On Pinterest: The same blog also has a Pinterest presence, and Alston can see other creators using both static pins and video pins about when to plant specific things. Gardening content does well on Pinterest because the audience is already in a planning mindset, and planting calendar information is exactly the kind of content they are searching for and saving.
On YouTube: A channel called Lick Branch Farms LLC has only 1,100 subscribers. A single video covering when to plant potatoes in North Carolina pulled 6,700 views. That proves you do not need a large audience to get views on this topic. YouTube’s algorithm serves educational gardening content to people who search for it, regardless of how big or small the channel is. The topic carries the traffic, not the follower count.
On TikTok: A single TikTok video answering the question of when to plant tomatoes racked up 468,000 views. This is not a large influencer account. It is someone with a phone, answering one simple question that millions of gardeners type into a search bar every year. TikTok rewards relevance and search intent as much as it rewards follower count, and “when to plant” content has both.
Every platform Alston checked had small creators winning in this space. Blog, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok: the opportunity exists across all of them simultaneously, which means you can pick the format you are most comfortable with and still find an audience.
Six Ways to Make Money in the Gardening Planting Niche
Traffic is only worth something if you have a plan to turn it into income. Here are the six monetization methods Alston covers in the video, with the specific details he shares about each one.
1. Display Advertising
The small gardening blog Alston references in the video was running display ads through an ad network. At its peak, the traffic value from those ads alone hit over $8,000 per month. Display ads are passive once you have traffic: the ad network handles everything, and you earn without doing any additional selling or customer service. Most bloggers start with Google AdSense when traffic is low, then move to higher-paying networks like Mediavine or Raptive once they hit the traffic thresholds those networks require.
2. Email Marketing
The blog Alston showcases was building an email list by offering something free in exchange for a name and email address, a lead magnet. Once you have subscribers on a list, you can follow up with a paid digital product, a gardening course, or even a one-on-one coaching offer. Gardening audiences tend to be loyal and seasonal, coming back each spring and fall with new questions. An email list lets you show up in their inbox at exactly those moments rather than hoping they find you again through search.
3. Seeds Now Affiliate Program
Seeds Now is a seed company with its own affiliate program. Alston mentions in the video that they pay a 25% commission with a 60-day cookie window. If someone clicks your affiliate link and buys anything from Seeds Now within 60 days, you earn 25% of that sale. For a niche that is literally about the right time to plant seeds, this is one of the most natural affiliate fits possible. Someone reading your article about when to plant tomatoes in Texas is actively planning to grow tomatoes, which means they may well need to buy tomato seeds. The intent and the product are perfectly aligned.
4. Amazon Associates
Amazon sells every gardening tool imaginable. Alston points to pruning shears as one example: a single pair had 1,000 purchases in the previous month on Amazon alone. As an Amazon Associate, you earn a commission on everything in the cart when someone clicks your affiliate link, not just the item you specifically linked to. Gardening content is a natural fit for Amazon links to seeds, potting soil, raised bed kits, gloves, trellises, watering systems, and more. People who are actively gardening buy gardening supplies regularly.
5. Digital Gardening Planner
Alston found a gardening planner being sold for $7.98. This type of product is a printable PDF or digital download that tells gardeners when to plant each vegetable based on their growing zone, with space to track what they planted, where, and when. You can sell this directly from your website, through an email funnel, or on a platform like Etsy, which already has an audience of people shopping for planners and printables. The upside of a digital product is that you create it once and it can sell indefinitely with no inventory and no shipping.
6. Dropshipping or Amazon FBA
For creators who want more control over the product and a higher margin, dropshipping gardening products or sourcing them for Amazon FBA are two more paths. Alston acknowledges these are more involved than affiliate marketing and require more upfront research and capital. But the gardening niche has consistent seasonal demand and clear buyer intent, which makes product sales viable for someone willing to build in that direction. This is a longer-term play, not a week-one strategy, but it is worth knowing it is on the table.
Not sure if the gardening niche is the right fit for you, or whether you should go a completely different direction?
Take the free two-minute quiz at finder.platformproof.com to find the online income path that fits your current skills, schedule, and starting point.
How to Start Creating Content in This Niche: A Seven-Step Plan
Alston’s message at the end of the video is direct: money does not fall out of the sky, and sitting on the fence is its own choice, which means staying where you are right now. The path forward is clear. Here is a seven-step sequence you can follow to go from zero to your first piece of traffic-generating content in this niche.
- Pick your plant. Start with a high-volume plant like tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, or sunflowers. These have the most sub-keywords and the most active search communities across all platforms.
- Pick your platform. Blog, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok all work in this niche. If you prefer writing, start a blog. If you are more comfortable on camera, go YouTube or TikTok. If you want early traffic with low production effort, Pinterest can drive clicks to a blog faster than Google alone.
- Start with state-level keywords. Instead of competing for “when to plant tomatoes” with a keyword difficulty of 32, write “when to plant tomatoes in [your state]” where the keyword difficulty is often zero. Create one post per state and one post per growing zone to build out a content cluster.
- Learn the basics of USDA growing zones. Alston admits in the video that he knew nothing about growing zones before this research. You do not need to be a gardening expert. You need to understand what zones are and how they translate into planting windows for each plant. This information is publicly available through the USDA and state agricultural extension programs. AI writing tools can also help you research and draft accurately once you have the core facts.
- Set up your monetization before you publish. Sign up for Seeds Now’s affiliate program and Amazon Associates before your first post goes live. That way, your first article can start earning from the moment it gets any traffic, rather than adding links later after readers have already come and gone.
- Build your email list from day one. Offer a free planting calendar or zone guide in exchange for an email address. Put this offer on every page of your blog and at the end of every piece of content. This email list becomes your most valuable long-term asset because you can sell digital products, courses, or coaching to it in future seasons without relying on search rankings or algorithm changes.
- Create consistently and treat early traffic as proof of concept. Getting even a small trickle of traffic on your first post confirms that the niche works. Use that as motivation to keep going. The small website Alston highlights was once generating over $8,000 per month from ads alone. That did not happen with one post. It happened because someone kept writing.
Honest Drawbacks to Know Before You Start
This niche has real upside, but it is worth being honest about the challenges so you go in with accurate expectations.
Seasonality: Gardening search traffic is heavily seasonal. Tomato planting questions spike in late winter and spring. Pumpkin seed questions spike in late spring through early summer. Your traffic and income will follow these seasonal patterns, which means you need to plan your content calendar around the seasons and build your email list during peak months to stay connected with your audience through the off-season.
Google timelines: For a new blog, Google can take three to six months to rank new content, sometimes longer for a brand-new domain. You will not see significant search traffic in your first month. This is where supplementing with Pinterest and TikTok matters: both platforms can send traffic to your content within days of posting, which gives you early signals without waiting for Google to catch up.
Content volume required: One article about when to plant tomatoes in North Carolina will not generate meaningful income on its own. The model works at scale: dozens or hundreds of posts, each pulling a small amount of targeted traffic that adds up. This is a long-game play, not a quick win, and that is important to understand before you start so you do not quit after three posts with no results.
You have to learn the subject matter: Alston is honest that he did not know what growing zones were before this research. If you write inaccurate planting guidance, you will get negative feedback from real gardeners who know better, and that will hurt your credibility and your search rankings. Take the time to learn the basics correctly before publishing, or get your content reviewed by someone with gardening experience.
Find Your X
The gardening planting niche is a real opportunity with real examples of small creators winning in it. But it is one of many niches out there with the same low-competition, high-intent characteristics. What matters most is finding the niche that fits your interests, your existing knowledge, and the amount of time you can realistically commit. A niche you will stick with for six months beats a theoretically perfect niche you walk away from in week three because it bores you.
If you are not sure whether gardening is your lane, or if you want to see what other low-competition niches might fit your skills and schedule, the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com walks you through a short set of questions and points you toward the online income path that matches where you are right now.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to be a gardening expert to make money in this niche?
No. Alston says directly in the video that he knew nothing about growing zones before this research session. You need to learn the basics of USDA growing zones and planting windows, which are publicly available and straightforward to research. AI writing tools can help you produce accurate drafts quickly, but always fact-check planting dates against official sources like state agricultural extension programs or the USDA hardiness zone map before publishing.
What is a USDA growing zone and why does it matter?
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map divides the United States into 13 zones based on average annual minimum temperatures. Gardeners use these zones to figure out which plants can survive in their area and when to plant them. When someone searches “when to plant tomatoes in Ohio,” the honest answer depends on which zone in Ohio they live in. Understanding zones lets you write accurate, useful content that people actually need, rather than generic advice that does not account for regional differences.
How long does it take to start earning money in this niche?
For a blog, Google can take three to six months to rank new content, especially for a brand-new domain. Pinterest and TikTok can drive traffic much faster, sometimes within days of posting. The fastest path to early earnings is to combine a blog for long-term Google traffic with Pinterest or TikTok for immediate visibility, and to have your affiliate links set up from the start so any early traffic has a chance to convert before you have built significant scale.
Which plants have the most keyword opportunity in this niche?
Alston highlights tomatoes, potatoes, tulip bulbs, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds in the video. Tomatoes are particularly strong because the keyword cluster is large and search intent is active year-round in different parts of the country. Tulip bulbs and sunflower seeds have strong seasonal spikes in spring. To find additional plant opportunities, use a keyword research tool and search “[plant name] in [state]” to check the volume and difficulty for each combination before writing.
Is the Seeds Now affiliate program worth joining?
It is worth considering. A 25% commission with a 60-day cookie is above average for a physical product affiliate program, where 5 to 10 percent is more typical. The key variable is whether your traffic converts to seed purchases. People reading a blog post about when to plant tomatoes in North Carolina have clear buying intent: they are planning to plant, which means they likely need seeds. That intent-to-purchase alignment is a strong signal for affiliate conversion rates.
Can I make money on TikTok in this niche without showing my face?
Yes. Gardening content performs well on TikTok as footage of plants, garden beds, hands in soil, and time-lapse grows. You do not need to appear on camera at all. The 468,000-view TikTok video Alston references is answering one planting question, and many gardening accounts use voiceover audio over garden footage to avoid being on screen. If you prefer to stay off camera, TikTok can still work for this niche with the right content format and consistent posting.
Should I cover every US state or focus on a few at first?
Start with three to five states where you can write the most accurate and detailed content. If you live in Texas, start with Texas, then expand to neighboring states with similar growing conditions. This lets you build with more authority early on and create a small cluster of interlinked content before branching out. Once you have confirmation that Google is indexing and ranking your posts, you can scale to additional states and grow zones with more confidence.
Do I need a website to make money in this niche?
Not to start. TikTok and Pinterest can drive affiliate link clicks and digital product sales without a website, using bio links and pin descriptions. However, a blog gives you the most control over long-term traffic and income. You own the audience, the content, and the email list. A website with a custom domain is where the highest ceiling exists in this niche, because a blog can eventually earn from ads, affiliate links, digital products, and email marketing all at once, from the same piece of content you wrote once.
Read Next
If this breakdown of the gardening planting niche sparked ideas about building real income through content, the next step is understanding how to turn what you create into products people pay for.
Read How to Create and Sell Digital Products Online for a step-by-step look at building the kind of digital planner or guide that turns your gardening content into a scalable income stream.
Sources
- YouTube video transcript: Alston Godbolt, “Hidden $5K Per Month Niche Exposed | How To Make Money Online In 2023,” youtube.com/watch?v=1FGSsFj0zV0
- Seeds Now affiliate program details: referenced in video at 25% commission, 60-day cookie window
- USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map: planthardiness.ars.usda.gov
- Keyword data: “when to plant tomatoes” (5,000+ monthly searches, KD 32); “when to plant tomatoes in NC” (KD 0); “when to plant tomatoes in [location]” (12,000 monthly searches, 562 keywords); source: keyword research tool referenced in video
- Amazon pruning shears: 1,000+ purchases in prior month, per video screen capture
- Lick Branch Farms LLC YouTube channel: 1,100 subscribers, 6,700 views on planting video, per video screen capture
- TikTok planting video: 468,000 views, per video screen capture
Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.