EarthBox, Inc., the manufacturer of gardening boxes, touted its community outreach efforts last week, providing examples of how schools and senior citizen groups are discovering the joys of gardening in unlikely locations such as roofs, parking lots, and playgrounds.
Students at a Pennsylvania elementary school grow enough in their Eartbox gardens to feed the entire school on World Food Day each year.
Molly Philbin, the education director for EarthBox, explained the company’s strategy in a press statement: “Gardening can teach everything from science to nutrition while being fun and rewarding at the same time. And since our EarthBox® container gardening system provides ideal growing conditions without the need to dig or weed, groups find that they can enjoy great yields with very little effort.”
EarthBox produces large yields of high quality vegetables with much less work
The rectangular, tub-like containers produced by EarthBox, Inc. features a self-watering reservoir at the bottom of its boxes to enhance “maintenance-free” aspects of gardening.
While purists desire hands-on maintenance of gardens, EarthBox is appealing to groups who lack the time to devote to every aspect of gardening, as well as limited physical skills.
EarthBox is not just for vegetables. These self contained gardens grow beautiful flowers as well
For example, an EarthBox garden was designed for senior residents in Florida who are confined to wheelchairs. The engineer behind the design said the garden “offers them a place where they can grow fresh vegetables, socialize, and relax.”
EarthBox also presented the example of young children ages three to five participating in a nutrition club hosted by a Tampa, Fla., community college. The EarthBox garden focuses on herbs, and the kids tend to the garden, pick the herbs, and learn about the various qualities of the herbs. The club has a weekly “smelling party,” and its president said the young gardeners have a “blast with this weekly activity.”
EarthBox allows you to grow big, beautiful tomatoes right outside your door
EarthBox also cited the examples of scouting organizations for both boys and girls using the convenient gardens to earn badges.
Again, the basins produced by EarthBox are not yielding the type of crop output that most gardeners are trying to achieve. But the self-container market continues to reach its demographic niche, and EarthBox has demonstrated that its products successfully kindle interest in gardening among school-based groups, as well as rekindle interest among our seniors.
The company, which was started in 1994, develops “sustainable” container garden systems for all secondary grade levels in schools. With the national interest in combating obesity among schoolchildren, this type of gardening helps foster to concept of a healthier lifestyle as a result of what’s planted in the garden.
Group several containers together to create a beautiful back porch landscape.
