A Capitalist Dream: Company Designs and Maintains Organic Garden In Your Backyard
Most environmentally aware Americans would love a personal organic vegetable garden, but how many people actually have the time to cultivate one?. Thanks to a San Francisco-based company called MyFarm, Bay Area denizens can pay a weekly fee to have a backyard garden designed and maintained by professionals.
Customers choose between a Personal Installation (just enough food for themselves) and an Owner Member Installation (enough food for MyFarm to sell to other members). Owner members receive a discounted membership.
The company leaves no gardening detail ignored. Each garden is tested for toxins and receives a drip irrigation system to automatically water the vegetables. MyFarm even maintains a compost pile and takes care of all pesky weeds that arise.
MyFarm founder Trevor Paque envisions a decentralized urban farm in San Francisco, made up of a network of organic urban vegetable gardens where clients in sunny areas grow tomatoes for those in foggier areas, and those in the foggy parts of town grow broccoli and other cool-weather veggies for those in warmer climes.
Paque and his crew do all work by hand and follow permaculture farming principles to ensure the long-term sustainability of each garden. Sample garden produce includes artichokes, spinach, squash, sweet peppers, carrots, and peas.
While some people may protest that a service such as MyFarm downplays the importance of individual farming and gardening skills, I believe that this is an important step in creating a local food economy. After all, in today’s era of high food and gas prices, shouldn’t we welcome a service that wants to provide high-quality produce close to home?
I’ve seen this in a few other cities, too (Portland and Boulder come to mind) What a fantastic idea.
growing your own food to the degree possible is one step towards saving fuel costs to transport.
Great idea. We can save a lot, not just the $$$ but also the environment.
So does “MyFarm” do ten acres in Arkansas? If so how much, especially if I let them sell the produce.
Dody - Unfortunately they aren’t in Arkansas yet, but hopefully if the service really takes off it will be replicated in other parts of the country. As Tim’s comment mentions, other cities (Boulder, Portland) are already doing similar things.
Organic Gardens are so cool. Real hip and the chicks love it.
JT
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
Growing your own food is not that hard. why pay a fee to have someone do it for you? I’ve been growing food for upwards of twenty years.
There is another angle to this story, and it is commercial backyard farming. As the co-author of SPIN-Farming, what I see every day are more and more entrepreneurs throughout the U.S. and Canada using SPIN’s franchise-ready system as an entry point into the farming profession. These first generation farmers are using front lawns and backyards and neighborhood lots as their land base. Developed by Canadian farmer Wally Satzewich, SPIN makes it possible to earn significant income from growing vegetables on land bases under an acre in size. SPIN farmers utilize relay cropping to increase yield and achieve good economic returns by growing only the most profitable food crops tailored to local markets. SPIN’s growing techniques are not, in themselves, breakthrough. What is novel is the way a SPIN farm business is run. SPIN provides everything you’d expect from a good franchise: a business plan, marketing advice, and a detailed day-to-day workflow. In standardizing the system and creating a reproducible process it really isn’t any different from McDonalds. By offering a non-technical, easy-to-understand and inexpensive-to-implement farming system, it allows many more people to farm, wherever they live, as long as there are nearby markets to support them, and it removes the two big barriers to entry – sizeable acreage and significant start-up capital. You can see SPIN farmers in action at http://www.spinfarming.com
I’m looking to buy a house in Pittsburg, CA with a priority on getting land so I can grow fruit and veg (would also like to have some chickens).
This idea has really peeked my interest since I don’t know any more than the average joe about growing stuff. Anyone know when/if this program will expand to include Pittsburg, ca ?
This is fascinating. It’s kind of like the small wifi networks that are being built in cities that operate because individuals are sharing across networks.