“When does gardening become farming?”
“When does gardening become farming? When are you no longer having dinner parties and running a restaurant instead?”
"Girlfriend, did you use Elliot Coleman's Deep Organic Techniques to get these flowers?"
This question come to us via the Editorial Reviews for Elliot Coleman’s book, “The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses”. What are ‘deep organic technique’s”? I have no idea, but will have to read the book to find out. It won’t be long before some customers ask us at the garden center, and I want to have an answer.
Elliot’s book is a best seller,#9 at Amazon.com under gardening and horticulture. It’s really an eye opener for myself to check out what’s selling at the “bookstore”. Just above Elliot’s books at #8 is “Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables”, and right after at #10 is “Marijuana Grower’s Handbook: Your Complete Guide for Medical and Personal Marijuana Cultivation”.
If you’re in the business of selling to gardeners it’s important to know what they are up to. We talked earlier about Dig, Drop, and Done (the bulb industries attempt to appeal to “real” people). Yes, I can see the ladies at Dig, Drop, and Done talking about how they use “deep organic technique’s” when gardening. The campaign for the bulbs is of course aimed at non-gardeners. It’s an attempt to get people interested in a subject they might never have had an interest in before, planting bulbs. Are we advertising to the wrong people?
Let my next customer be someone who is interested in “deep organic techniques” and not someone looking for bulbs to “dig, drop, and done.” “The deep organic technique” person is someone who is already interested in the subject, has a willingness to try new things, and likely will be in the store time and time again to continue their learning. The whole Dig, Drop and Done campaign predicates a person who, once done planting those bulbs is DONE. No more trips to the garden center.
In an attempt to “rescue” gardening from the continuing decline in interest amongst the general population we miss the people who are already fired up about the garden. It will take a change in our thinking about our customers. Who are we attempting to attract and why? Give me one customer who is interested in “deep organic techniques” over 5 who just want to “be done”.
Now I’m off to learn about those “deep organic techniques.” Got to try and stay one step ahead of my customers.
My latest blog post at The Blogging Nurseryman, "When does gardening become farming?": http://t.co/ICzTlX4r
According to this review of the book, the term “deep organic techniques” means “exceptional”.
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&context=librarian_pubs&sei-redir=1#search=%22deep%20organic%20techniques%22
It sounds from the review like a lot of the ground was covered previously by John Jeavons in “How to Grow More Vegetables”.
Fred,
Believe it or not I have never read either! I have caught a quote or two.Now that my interest in these methods has been stirred I’ll check out both. If we keep getting cold snaps late in the season like last year some of these techniques from colder climates may be useful.
Trey, Both of these books have sold well for us at Bowood Farms in St. Louis. Customers do purchase, read them and are hopefully using some of the techniques. Also, Square Foot Gardening is still a popular choice by customers of All Ages!
“When does gardening become farming?” ………when there’s an app for it
HI,
According to me Customers do purchase read them and are hopefully using some of the techniques. Also square foot gardening, is still a popular choice by customers of All Ages.
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