Inside Urban Green

SIP Salad Bowls » A Small Business Opportunity

via www.youtube.com

This video from Cooking Up a Story is right on target except for one thing and you probably know what it is. Of course, these salad bowls should be sub-irrigated planters (SIPs). They will be far more productive and built-in water reservoirs will significantly reduce the risk of drying out.

Small planters like these salad bowls are high risk for fatal desiccation. I see wilted plants in drain hole planters all over my neighborhood here in Brooklyn. There are wilted plants everywhere. It is a sorry sight in the heat of the summer.

The video reminds me of an old expression in my sales career and it is; “every disadvantage, an advantage”. It’s about flipping negatives into positives. There is a small business opportunity here created by the ultra conservative mindset of the garden center industry.

A SIP salad bowl business could be a home based business or one that is associated with an existing retail business such as a florist or hardware store. It would not take much of an investment to start a business like this. It could be a door-to-door business run by high school teenagers or college students.

FARM:shop » Under Construction

The FARM:shop in London is open now. Here is what it looked like under construction. More to come about the FARM:shop. Stay tuned. 

Prior post about the FARM:shop.

via www.youtube.com

At The Farm:Shop Something & Son are converting a derelict shop into an urban food 'Hub', cafe and arts venue complete with mini 'aquaponic' fish farms, rooftop chicken coops, indoor allotments and polytunnel.

WSJ.com: Entrepreneurs Who Launched Companies for Under $150

Never in my life have I seen better opportunities for starting a small business than right now in the field of local food and urban agriculture.

via online.wsj.com

You don't have to break the bank to start a business.

For many would-be entrepreneurs, money is the insurmountable hurdle. They hunger to strike out on their own, but don't have a big pile of cash to invest in a start-up that might not churn a profit for years to come. And they're reluctant to stake what cash they do have while the economy is still shaky.

We decided to see if you could launch a venture for less than people think. A lot less. We set out to find bootstrapping business owners who started companies in recent years—without shelling out more than a couple of hundred dollars.

Sub-irrigateed Planters (SIPs): A Backyard Tomato Garden Or Business

Here is a look at our tomatoes in EarthBoxes this spring, well, almost summer

via www.facebook.com

It would be interesting to know the fresh vegetable production (and street value) of this back yard garden, excuse me farm. What we see here could well be a family small business selling both vegetables and ready-to-grow sub-irrigated planter (SIP) gardens. Read about someone already doing it. 

Think about all the unemployed teenagers and college students we have in America who could produce some significant fresh food and income over a summer if they knew how. 

The key is education about modern methods of urban food production that does not require tilling scarce and often-contaminated land. Currently this information is not available and that is a national disgrace. Third world countries get better information (micro gardening for example) from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) than we do.

The USDA is not funded or mandated to teach you as an urban or suburban citizen how to grow your own food using the most modern productive methods. It is funded by tax dollars and supported by lobbyists whose sole interest is in promoting corporate agriculture. That does not include you.

Instead of modern up to date consumer information, the USDA through its Extension and Master Gardener programs spreads outdated information about dirt and drain hole gardening. Sadly, urban foodie and dirt hugger bloggers and writers drink their cool-aid and spit it out all over the Internet. The blind end up leading the blind.

Almost every day I see photos like this one about job training. Well intentioned perhaps but dumb and dumber. Working in a MacDonald's or Starbuck's is probably a better job than this. The expression "dirt cheap" isn't just about the dirt; it's also about dirt-cheap jobs that lead nowhere. 

A Recent Quote From Two Dog Organic Nursery In L.A.

via www.facebook.com

We now have 19 EarthBoxes growing at the Home Nursery...a veritable farm in the heart of the city!

The easiest, most productive container gardening known to man!

website: Two Dog Organic Nursery
prior post: EarthBoxes To Go From Two Dog Organic Nursery

SIP Furniture: A Peek Into The Future

via www.metrovegetable.com

Who would recognize that these plants are growing in EarthBox sub-irrigated planters (SIPs)? A company named Metro Vegetable is making fine-furniture planters that hide them. It is located in North Carolina, a traditional furniture manufacturing center of the U.S. that has been hard hit by Asian competition (especially China).

Note that this is the same design concept used by Cabbage Patch Garden a business started by a carpenter in Minneapolis. The difference is that Cabbage Patch Garden is marketing them as edible gardens rather than just furniture.

The Cabbage Patch Garden Looks Like A SIP Winner

It's great to see a business built on the exploitation of sub-irrigated planter (SIP) systems. Dick Larsen in Minneapolis was savvy enough to see the opportunity and seize on it. 

You can read about the progress he is making with his Cabbage Patch Garden planters in the following article. Is it too bad a pun to call his planters SIPerior? Based on the article it appears his customers think they are. It's well worth reading.

I applaud both the aesthetics and functionality he has incorporated into his planters. It reflects the work of a master carpenter which is what he is. Incidentally, based on his website photos (scroll down) it appears that he has incorporated the drain pipe method. I also like his 3-box SIP insert design. It provides a great deal of flexibility. Overall, he has done a great job of both design and fabrication.

My opinion is that these planters will be highly productive in both a business sense and in terms of customer satisfaction. I have no doubt that over time Cabbage Patch Garden SIPs will produce many tons of fresh vegetables for his customers in the Twin Cities. I wish him the best of luck and tons of money too. Small business is not for the faint of heart.

via simplegoodandtasty.com

Dick Larsen is not the guy you'd expect to be at the helm of a revolution. He's soft-spoken and slightly built. With his thick, retro, architect glasses and pink rock-a-billy shirt with two roosters over the left pocket, it wouldn't be surprising to see a pack of cigarettes rolled up in his sleeve, but there are none. A carpenter by trade and, now, the sole proprietor of The Vegetable Revolution, Larsen is a self-taught man.

Planter Box, Raised Bed SIPs: Home Grow Micro Farms

Home Grow Micro Farms is a sub-irrigated planter (SIP) service business in Los Angeles.

The last time I blogged about them they were in Austin, Texas. That's okay, I move around too. L.A. is no doubt a much bigger market for a business like this. 

This blog post got my attention in that they are not just using EarthBoxes but also providing wooden box SIPs. In my view the potential market for raised bed and box SIPs is enormous.

via earth911.com
Website: Home Grow Micro Farms

In a city of cement, die-hard gardeners usually have to content themselves with a window box of gardenias or a series of never-ending potted plants. The prospect of growing anything even remotely more ambitious is extinguished by factors that characterize an urban environment, such as lack of living space.

Two Dog Organic Nursery Teaches Too

Ready to go EarthBoxes at Two Dog Organic Nursery

Two Dog Organic Nursery not only offers fully planted EarthBoxes to go, they also teach about them. It's an excellent way to market a business and do some social good too by freeing people from dirt and drain hole bondage.

Based on my knowledge of how little is offered on this subject here in New York City, this could be a full time business. The two major botanic gardens offer nothing on the subject. Amazing, but true!

Via their blog: 2dog-blog.blogspot.com

Two Dog Organic Nursery announces Monthly EarthBox Planting Classes!

EarthBoxes To Go From Two Dog Organic Nursery

EarthBoxes to go – Jo Anne on the right helping a customer

Jo Anne of Two Dog Organic Nursery in Los Angeles is sending off another smiling customer who will soon be enjoying fresh picked vegetables without the hassle of digging dirt.

Jo Anne and partner Alejandro were smart enough to see the business potential of portable sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) like the EarthBox. The idea is a winner.

Despite all the rather overblown rhetoric from dyed in the wool dirt huggers, most mainstream urbanites are not going to start “victory gardening”. There is buzz that is all out of proportion to reality. Without a major crisis as happened in Cuba dirt gardening is a non-starter for the vast majority of space limited and super busy city dwellers.

What does make sense, however, are portable SIP gardens that require very little work and space. Busy people in the city can easily handle this kind of “gardening” or more accurately personal food production. We will see more and more small business “SIP services” in the city in the future.

Source: www.twodognursery.com