Gardening on the Job

At Green Earth Organics, we're big fans of Nature's Path cereals and granola bars. They are tasty, organic, and they offer delicious gluten-free options too. They are also a local success story: from humble beginnings in Richmond in 1967, they are now a third-generation enterprise with plants in Washington and Wisconsin and grain farms in Saskatchewan.

Now they are making the pages of "Organic Gardening" magazine (organicgardening.com) for their unique workplace gardens.

The full article is available at Corporate Gardens: Out of the Office", but here are a couple of excerpts:

Six years ago, we built a garden for the staff on company property. Located at the back of our head office, it measures about 2,400 square feet. Participation is open to the approximately 100 people who work here. To build it, we brought in a backhoe to remove a bramble and weed patch, installed a culvert, covered a ditch, and installed raised beds filled with fertile soil, compost, and manure—all organic, of course.

Apart from the organic produce each person enjoys, gardening is one of the healthiest exercises known. When we turn compost, till the soil, weed, and water, we benefit: We leave the soil better than we found it; we breathe fresh air and move to the rhythms of gardening; we enjoy community spirit; we watch firsthand the cycle of nature—from seed to mature plant, to harvest and the sharing of bounty. Having a company organic garden is a group effort, though much of the work inevitably falls on a few shoulders. To garden, we have to be willing to roll up our sleeves and get our boots dirty. For me, the company gardens are a natural extension of a love for nature and its wonderful bounties, as well as, in the words of the Persian poet Saadi, "a delight to the eye and a solace for the soul."

"Organic Gardening" also offers advice on how to start your own on-the-job garden, Grow in your Job, including:

Last year, Independent School Management, a private school management consulting firm in Wilmington, Delaware, put in three raised beds and a high trellis for vertical gardening on company land. The staff planted only vegetables that could be handpicked, that didn’t require cooking, and that would produce abundantly—such as tomatoes, peppers, snap peas, small melons, radishes, and greens and herbs, reasoning that employees could easily harvest ripe vegetables and eat them minutes later in the lunchroom.