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Grow Your Own
Published: 25 Aug, 2009
Several garden centres are taking the initiative to grow their own business in these recessionary times.
One of the vehicles they are using to do this is the current trend to “Grow Your Own” or edible gardening.
A New Zealand garden centre has joined forces with the local Salvation Army to teach needy families how to grow and produce their own vegetables and fruit.
Five families sign up for a seasonal programme. Each family is given its own allotment in space at the back of the garden centre. Each week the families come in for some training and tuition, and for some hands-on planting and tending of their individual plots. As the produce matures and ripens it is theirs to take home to supplement the family diet. Enthusiasm amongst the families is so strong that the young kids in the family call into the garden centre on their way to and from school to water and tend their gardens.
The programme has 
been a huge success with the first groups of families now growing their own fruit and vegetables at home, resulting in more sales for the garden centre of seeds, plants, compost, fertilisers, raised gardens, and all the accessories associated with fruit and vege growing. Publicity for the programme has been huge, with front page pictures and editorials in the local papers, plus support from the local council business mentoring programme. Suppliers have come to the party as well providing compost and soil, fertilisers, plants and seeds.
So, how has the garden centre benefited? They have experienced huge, and free, media exposure, and have engendered great community support. The interest has generated increased sales of “Grow Your Own” products. They have turned non-gardening families into gardening families who are now regular customers.
In Ireland a garden centre I work with has set up a similar scheme. They have created a series of raised garden beds at the centre from where they run gardening classes. They have extended it out from fruit and vegetable growing to include bulbs, flowers, trees and shrubs.
They run a 
course over four Saturday mornings for which customers pay, yes pay! €60.00. The courses start with a short classroom session discussing the theory and principles of the day’s programme. Then it’s out to the plots for some hands-on planting, staking, feeding and watering. After each session the trainees shop the garden centre and leave with their seeds, seedlings, and bags of compost.
Again the response has been positive, with a rise in sales, the creation of new gardeners and new customers, and the development of a strong relationship between the garden centre and its community. A win – win situation.
In New Zealand and Australia the governments are encouraging schools to promote healthy eating and living amongst pupils by creating vegetable gardens in the school grounds, where the kids can learn about growing fruit and veges, how to cook and use this produce to provide tasty and healthy alternatives to junk food.
One garden centre I work with has written to over sixty schools offering product, discounts, help and advice. Already two schools have become regular customers. No doubt more will follow. Suppliers and growers are helping out with products to offset some of the garden centre costs.
Even if the success rate is just 10% of all letters sent, that’s six schools which have become new customers, not to mention the parents of the kids on the programme who want to try things at home! For more information and ideas see http://www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au/
These are just three examples of how we can do something different to help grow our business.These stores are capitalizing on a trend, adding value to it, generating new customers, and creating a strong point of difference for themselves in an aggressive retail market. They are also building a long term future customer base, sowing the seeds of gardening into the psyches of young kids.
This is a much better way to grow your business than a constant flow of sales and discounting which cut the profit out of your business and which generate an influx of opportunist customers rather than building a loyal customer base.
