This has floated around in the back of my mind since the day this article was submitted for the column. I think it's an excellent idea.

Here is a link that might be useful: Your Backyard Farmer

The idea was kind of discussed a couple of weeks ago. As I said back then, I've incorporated vege gardens as part of our landscape business. I think the main requirement is customers with little time and enough money like the weekenders we do it for. Most of these people don't rely on the produce but they like the look, and we do it organically. Vege gardens do require timely harvesting and the owners are often not here when something is ready to pick (extra benefit for me)

Here is a link that might be useful: Install and maintain veggie garden for neighbor

Thanks Corapegia, you saved me from having to find that link. I brought this up in the link above a couple weeks ago and got mixed feedback. Thanks to Robin for the backyard farmer link, it's good to see someone has thought of this before and is making it work. I've linked to an older post below from the professional gardener forum that discusses the same thing. The OP did not get positive feedback for the most part. I think it's a good idea and I like the CSA business model the best, just like the backyardfarmer link above.

Here is a link that might be useful: Professional gardener forum link to discussion

I thought about doing a while go but ran into 3 problem catagories..
1. Design
2. plants variety and seed starting costs.
3. bed setup, labor,water system and maintenance.

1. Design
a.people who would want this service would not be willing to except cookie cutter designs
b. If was easy there be no need for the service.
2. plants varieties and seed starting costs.
a. you need very comprehensive seed library do to fact since people would not tolerate every day varieties.
b seed start would require info from clients at least 3 months in advance aka end January to early February at latest.
3. bed setup, labor,water system and maintenance.
a. bed setup 2-3 months in advance
b planting plants
watering system hoses, ooze hoses, water timers, manifolds
c planting plants
d weeding,pruning and tying up plants when needed

the final price for reasonable designed 30 ft 30 ft garden from scratch done right. with good production,and designed efficiently. soups to nuts including weekly check up, weeding for 7 month season with free choice of plants.

Total Cost $1000 min.

I did full scale test on local community garden plot.

If you want I could itemize it for you including all costs and activities.

Thank you all for the thoughts and the links.

This was kind of a random idea that popped into my head a week ago, as I was doing dishes and staring out the window at the frost. (You guys know the feeling!)

One common feeling I garnered from this info is that the sole point of having a vegetable garden is to do it cheaper than Safeway. Is that all everyone thinks these days?

I was thinking more about improving the mineral content of the soil (we are low in calcium and magnesium, esp, here), improving the soil itself, and creating a nutrition-dense garden. But, thinking about how dumbed-down and quick-fix Americans are, I guess few people would care. And it would cost too much to educate them in order to get their business (which wouldn't necessarily follow).

Sue

but that is one of the only advantages that can be obtained from a garden, belgianpup. Flavor is a consideration, but mainly only with tomatoes, peppers, and sweet corn. Most vegetables don't really taste THAT much better from a vegetable garden than from a supermarket. I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me, but I just don't see it. I mean really how much better can a carrot or turnip taste? Sure with a a lot of vegetables you can wait for the first frost to make them sweeter, but that's just small window of time out of the whole year. If you're all going to tell me ALL the stuff from your garden tastes that much better, well then you've got much more sensitive taste buds than I.

And what do you mean by nutrient-dense? You can get the same nutrition by buying the vegetables. You could talk about how garden vegetables are more nutritious and blah blah blah but sorry they're really relatively minor differences in nutrients.

And I really don't see/get your point about improving the soil. Improving the soil isn't something most people value in and of itself - it's what gardeners do for better gardening.

There is the advantage of organic gardening, but there are only so many Americans who eat organic, or who can even afford to. Sorry, but I just don't buy it - wow 2 parts per MILLION of a pesticide is in my food, I'm scared. There just aren't many things that can affect you at such tiny concentrations, and the things that can are completely natural, not manmade (we humans WISH we were that good at chemistry). And in general I just refuse to pay the exorbitant prices I see on organic produce. To put it another way, MAYBE tiny amounts of pesticides over time might have a negative affect, but I KNOW that organic produce costs an arm and a leg.

The good news is, regardless of what everyone is saying and "calculating", you CAN do it cheaper than the market. A LOT cheaper. Produce is expensive. And DRIVING to buy produce is expensive and time consuming. If you're just willing to save seed you can save seed you can save a lot of money. Heck even people who buy seed do more than break even.

Not to mention that you can grow exactly the varieties you want, and other stuff you can't find in the stores. These things do have a value.

In the end the biggest reason why more Americans don't garden themselves is that nobody has any real land. Half the land in populated areas is off-limits due to land restrictions of some kind or another, and the land people do own, they're not allowed to do anything with. A lot of places don't allow you to cut down any trees even on your own land. In the end land is scarce and expensive, and none of it is FULL SUN. Remember, water and LIGHT are the most important plant nutrients, especially for gardens/garden plants.

What I wonder more than anything is why nobody is considering this idea as a free thing? Am I the ONLY one out there who would do it for free and share the produce with the landowner?

Also, nobody's including fruit-growing. Fruit is especially exspensive and especially MUCH better home-grown. Home-grown fruit can definitely be much tastier, not to mention that fruit trees/bushes are in the long run less laborsome/time-consuming to take care of.

I think that helping people start vegetable gardens is a doable idea. First thought I had was watching attendees at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show. Usually the most interest is shown in those displays that incorporate some sort of edible garden.
There are retirees with disposable income who have wanted an edible garden, or remember having one, but no longer have the physical ability to start one. Look who is attending the talks on vegetable gardening lately. There is a home for people with Alzheimers that has their landscaping in edible plants with a gardener who takes care of it.
Last week I attended a Grange meeting on "niche farming".
Edible landscaping would fill a niche especially if it was something that you liked to do. You should start to research the consumer base in your area and then figure on small scale start up costs.
This spring I am putting in a 300 sq. ft. veggie garden in my daughter's yard (300 miles away). I am having fun planning for the varieties she has requested and ease of maintainance for her. I think that that is the kind of thing that you had in mind.

Tony Kienitz, author of The Year I Ate My Yard, runs an edible landscaping business. Also, I know another guy who sells at my farmers' market from his backyard garden--he designs vegetable gardens and edible landscaping for folks. He's just starting out, but Tony Kienitz has made a life for his family off of his business.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tony Kienitz's website

I am a professional gardener, orchard manager, and organic vegetable farmer with over 30 years experience. I have installed edible landscapes, vegetable gardens, and orchards for clients and schools and still help manage several of them.

I farm an acre of raised permanent beds in vegetables and small fruit and two acres of mixed temperate and subtropical fruit trees. We sell produce and organic eggs retail ordered off an ever-changing weekly list distributed to families, caterers and restaurants. I have run this operation with limited help since 1991, peaking with three acres of beds in 1999.

I admit upfront that I can't make a living alone from this part-time operation. I could if I focused on a few high-valued and well-marketed crops, but I have designed the farm as also a demonstration "urban farm" or market garden and host tours and volunteers from the community.

Other posters have complained about how hard the work for vegetable farming is. That is true. You do have to bend and twist and push and pull and sometimes work in bad weather and even in the dark. But, with the right choice of tools and proper timing, the amount and severity of labor can be minimized.

More difficult is the learning curve of what to plant and how to culture a crop. There are lots of sources of information and some may actually be true for your garden at the time you are growing your crop. Of greater value is your own growing experiences. We all make mistakes and miss windows of scheduled work. The key to success is good record keeping of what you have done in detail, including maps of planted bed to help with later succession planting.

If you wish to market products to a sustaining client base, you have to plan so as to grow what will sell and have the crops come in when customers expect deliveries. If you really know your business, you will have already sold what you plan to grow.

When you put in a vegetable garden or orchard for someone else, be sure to follow the planning model outlined above by bakersfield but with this proviso:

Start simple and start small with favorite edibles identified by the customer. You can more easily expand to more beds rather than have the customer complain about all that food going to waste because they or their friends don't eat that sort of stuff. So don't do exotics unless you are specifically asked to include them in your seed or plant list.

Make pretty. Add color and accents to the edible garden beds. As the crops are removed or decline, the visual impact will be lessened.

In the end, eating unprocessed food such as grown in these market gardens represents a declining investment in our diets. Less than 5% of America's diet is comprised of fresh, unprocessed foods. I am happy to see interest in growing your own or helping others grow their own fresh food.
Guess that's enough for now. Monday am pre-dawn wakeup is in store for this old farmer.

I just read this blog (part of my morning breakfast ritual) which exactly talks about growing your own. (or paying someone else to do it for you) published in the Washington Post. "In fact, if I were to nominate the job opportunity of 2008, it would be a specialty in implementing home food gardens. Call it foodscaping if you like, but I guarantee that if the practice takes, the apt word will emerge." read the article in the link

Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen Gardeners International Jan 18, 2008

Peanuttree,

Your store produce must be MUCH better than mine! Our stuff isn't even close to desirable. The carrots and lettuce tend to be bitter, the fruit far from ripe.

Homegrown carrots are FAR superior to store carrots. If you can lay hands on a juicer, juice some organically-grown carrots and then juice some store carrots. Even a smoker can tell the difference: much sweeter, far less bitter.

"You can get the same nutrients by buying the vegetables."

NO, you can't. Fruits and vegetables have the ABILITY to contain a wide range of vitamins and minerals, but if the soil is lacking in calcium, magnesium, selenium (etc) or any of the trace minerals, the food that grows there will be lacking it also. Produce can't pull minerals out of the air, and they can't absorb what isn't there. THAT'S the reason for improving the soil with minerals. It isn't just a matter of NPK, like the chemical companies want people to believe.

"There just aren't many things that can affect you at such tiny concentrations, and the things that can are completely natural, not manmade."

Ignorance is bliss, isn't it?

"Organic produce costs and arm and a leg."

My vet says good nutrition is essential to a healthy body. He says "You can pay now or you can pay later, but you're going to pay".

"What I wonder more than anything is why nobody is considering this idea as a free thing? Am I the ONLY one out there who would do it for free and share the produce with the landowner?"

You're independently wealthy? You have a high-paying job with minimal hours? You have a hardworking spouse who supports you? Lucky!

Sue

Boy, I'm really late to this. The past year I have been able to start a very small home gardening business. It took some planning, but after putting the plan into action, I was able to make a little over $700 in a 12 week time frame. I didn't know exactly how to start, but I knew I had to start small. I should mention that this hardly took any work-or at least it didn't amount to any hard work. The hardest part was the planning(what to grow at what time)and growing things in the dead of summer without having them bolt and go to seed, most notably lettuce. But once planned and implemented, it then just becomes a matter of multiplication. I only had 3 customer-it's all I wanted. Now I just need to multiply things out by how many people I want to have-and how many I can really handle in such a small plot. In short, I think I'll now be able to make about $2000 next growing season with my 150 square foot garden. It's a great hobby and one that I truly enjoy so it's not really work for me, but it will be a little bit of work for this amount. This figure is just for the gardening part. Then there's the teaching part. All total, I think I'll make about $10,000 next year-including growing and teaching. This includes no physical work for the months of November-February. You can visit me at my blog to read more about what I did. You'll have to make your way through it because it's a post from 4 weeks ago or so, but I know you can do it. If I had more room I'm sure I could make a whole lot more money-this is just from a garden that is 150 square feet. Because I grow everything from seed, the costs are kept to a very, very bare minimum. I had to buy small containers($1 each), rubber bands, some paper plates, paper clips, and a lot of paper towels. That was it. Don't give up on your idea. There is a way to make money doing this. The greatest thing? I run it as a cash business only-no checks or credit cards. How can you beat that? I say go for it.....my site is at: www.thewealthyearth.com. Feel free to contact me for more information if you're interested....

I was looking alone the lines of billing the customers so much per month. I have no idea of the price but I was looking along the lines of $36 month for say a 36 square foot plot of vegetable garden. This is a basic garden, no landscaping, no raised beds just dig up the lawn.
Any ideas or prices let me know.

Here is a link that might be useful: Is Vegetable Gardening For You

"well then you've got much more sensitive taste buds than I."

Without doubt. IME, the more one eats produce from mineralized soils the more sensitive one's taste becomes. Also, the less synthesized fats and sugars one eats the better one can taste the nutrients in whole foods.

pnbrown & bpup: I agree totally with you. Perhaps the superb flavor we find in fruit and vegetables from a good healthy soil is from the trace minerals and vitamins that plants are able to produce from it.
snibb; glad it is working for you.

Curt

"Perhaps the superb flavor we find in fruit and vegetables from a good healthy soil is from the trace minerals and vitamins that plants are able to produce from it. "

Scientific analysis of produce shows no - or occasionally subtle - differences between 'organic' and standard grown. If you think you can taste a difference, good for you.

I lifted this remark from the second post [denninmi].
"or maybe for assisted living homes or retirement communities, where the members would enjoy the nostalgia of it, but it is beyond the capacity of the residents to do it."

Now most of us do not go into a vegetable business, but I planted and caged 2 Sun Gold [cherry] and 1 Juliet [red grape] tomatoes at the assisted living place where my step mother is. They loved them.

jonfrum; Sorry I was not thinking of organic produce, but of soil and trace elements in the gardens, and of course the freshness of the vegetables :) Oh and science does not have all the answers to vitamins and minerals yet. May be some day they will, but for now just more questions for them to work out. Not trying to hijack this thread I just wanted to clarify my post!

Curt

The biggest (and practically total) indicator of a fruit/veggie's flavor is influenced by the genetics of the plant, itself.

This assumes letting the fruit actually ripen on the plant, btw...as we can all tell a vine ripened "Better Boy" (for example) tomato is a hell of a lot better than a picked-green then ethylene ripened tomato.

A big reason our home-grown veggies taste a lot better than grocery store veggies is that we aren't selecting seed types that produce quality shipping veggies (aka, usually harder or thicker/non-bruising skins).

There are some veggies who's flavors are believed to be influenced by more available nutrients. Sulfur in brassicas and bulbs (onions/garlic) are not only necessary, but it believed by some to enhance/change flavor...in some soils where S is more available it can make onions/garlic hotter in flavor. That said, it's effect via enhanced application is debated, plus S is practically an essential element comparable with N/P/K.

All plants have macro/micronutrient considerations that will give you the healthiest plants according to their needs, including healthy fruit/veg production and ripening.

Also...there's a lot of bunk (aka total b/s) stuff being sold out there as micronutrient supplements that do nothing more than extract money from you wallet while promising wild as hell benefits. Plants may benefit from these nutrients...but only if your soil is deficient to begin with...and usually there's far cheaper ways to meet these requirements.

Currently running a garden business in Dallas . We build and maintain culinary gardens for restaurants, hotels and corporate campus sites. Urban Dirt Company!