THE MINI FARM BOX MISSION

Our passion is to get more people growing in raised garden beds by making it easy for them to start.

CONOR’S STORY

When I started my own raised garden beds 20 plus years ago, I was just like any other home food gardener. I wanted to grow my own organic food and have fun doing it.

Like many California gardens, mine has hard, clay soil with low nutrient density. The hours I spent digging and turning it didn’t bother me because I what I lacked in knowledge I had in enthusiasm. I reaped moderate results, but had enough fun doing it to inspire further learning. Back then, there was no google (imagine!), so I armed myself with some good gardening books, and discovered that most savvy vegetable gardeners recommend raised garden beds. Why? Because they create much better drainage and aeration than conventional ground planting. Your soil stays loose and light, so your plants get more rooting space. And bigger roots mean bigger plants with more fruits and vegetables. So the next season I built my own raised beds, filled them with good organic planting soil, and sure enough, I got double the harvest. If there’s one thing it taught me, it’s this: A ‘green thumb‘ is nothing more than a little knowledge applied to nature.

Over the years, as I expanded my raised bed gardens, started composting, and grew more, I began to better understand the natural connection between all living things. From the soil microbes to the worms, from the flowers to the birds and the bees. They’re all giving each other a ‘leg up’ in a perfect cycle of exchange. I began to realize how organic growing practices allow these ecosystems to thrive and how industrial farming destroys them and diminishes the quality of our food and our environment. The more I read and observed, the deeper I came to believe that growing even a little of our own organic food is one of the most powerful contributions we can make to both our health and our planet. It made me want to help anyone who feels the same way, and I know there are many. So in 2008 I opened the doors on what is now MinifarmBox.